In 1977, 6 years after the events that took place in ‘The Conjuring’, Ed and Lorraine Warren find themselves in London and dealing with another possession. This time, the possession is being done by a demon that likes to disguise itself as an elderly (very creepy looking) nun. The demon takes possession of a little girl and all hell breaks lose (pun intended), as the girl’s mother and siblings scramble to save her. Fresh off the “Amityville” case, the Warrens jump onto the next flight to England to save the little girl from the penguin-styled demon.

Much like ‘The Conjuring’ movie, ‘The Conjuring 2’ opens with the Warrens solving a popular paranormal case. In the first movie, they were shown solving the “Annabelle” case, and this time we come in at the end of them solving the “Amityville horror” case. Since the first film led to Annabelle having its own standalone movie, I’m hoping we get a full Amityville movie, including the Warrens and all the same filmmakers in the other movies in this franchise. While our glimpse at the Amityville case is brief, it serves a purpose in that we get to see our first glimpse of the “demon nun”. Apparently, while Amityville murders took place, the demon nun was hiding in the basement the whole time. The case led to the Warrens taking a lot of heat with accusations of being frauds and taking advantage of grieving people. They don’t have much time to lay low, however, as they get a call to go to England and save a possessed little girl.

Initially, everyone believes the girl is possessed by the ghost of the old man who used to live in the house, and let me tell you – he did not give a damn who saw him. Normally in these haunting movies the ghost only reveals itself to a select person or maybe a couple of people until the final showdown at the end, but not this guy. He makes it known to everyone in the house that they are trespassing on his property and he wants them OUT. Even the police show up (expecting a domestic disturbance call) and are terrified from the house by the ghost throwing chairs at them. What does this have to do with the demon nun? Well it turns out the demon nun has possessed the ghost into possessing the little girl – wrap your head around that one. This demon nun is very resourceful as it also possesses a children’s toy into coming to life and terrorizing the family; a toy called “The Crooked Man”. That whole plot point threw me off. I like the idea but it seemed to come from way out of left field. His voice was creepy and I liked the way he moved through walls and the whole rhyming shtick, but what did that have to do with the plot? I don’t know, it just seemed a little random.

While the movie as a whole was very impressive, there are some small things here and there that I would change. The demon nun, for instance, should have been downplayed more as a subtle image in the shadows instead of a fanged, shrieking ghoul-type creature. When the demon nun first opened its mouth and showed its fangs I was immediately turned off. It felt campy, and not like something you’d expect in a high-budget horror movie. Although I loved the scene in the den with the demon nun painting, I would have changed that as well. The scene in question is where Lorraine Warren follows the demon nun into her den and it disappears. There’s a standing lamp next to a painting of the demon nun that keeps shutting off, forcing Lorraine to walk up and switch it on. Then, we see the shadow of the demon nun on the wall and it makes its way across the room until it’s right on top of the painting. Now, in the film, it was at this point the painting flew across the room at Lorraine while the demon nun was screaming. Instead, I think just as the shadow moved on top of the painting, the lights should have shut off one more time. Then, Lorraine would have had to walk up and turn the light on, knowing the shadow was standing right there. I think the tension could have been monumental if that happened. I don’t know, maybe I should just start making my own horror movies.

The ending was very dramatic in comparison to the first movie. Instead of the movie ending in a stand-off with a possessed woman, we get lightning striking a tree, shaping it into a perfect spike for Ed Warren to nearly fall onto – which was foreshadowed by Lorraine’s nightmare. I have to say, however, that the ending did fall short for me. There’s a lot of chaos and it’s all very exciting, but then Lorraine discovers all she has to do is say the demon’s name and it will disappear – and that’s exactly what happens. She runs into the room, says the demon’s name, and it vanishes into thin air. When that happened I thought to myself – wait, what? That’s all it took? After all the chaos and torture and mayhem all you had to do was say its name? Really?

In the end, I was very impressed with the overall movie. There were moments that were scary and moments I thought could have been improved, but it was far from the worst horror movie I’ve ever seen, and definitely good for an evening of good horror watching.

This movie is…

In my opinion, even better than the first movie.

Cheers and goodnight.