The 94th review!
Another year, another 31 horror movies! I’m on a bit of time crunch because I’m watching this before work and it took Maggie FOREVER to go to the bathroom, I ended up walking her about 3 0minutes! In any case, after all that, I took a shower, ate a bowl of Count Chocula, and watched
Insidious Chapter 2 (2013).
I liked the first one OK. It starts off really good and scary, but goes completely off the rails the second the medium puts on her gas mask. Then come to find out the main bad guy is actually Darth Maul is when I officially hopped off that train.
As for the second installment, well, my opinion hasn’t changed much. You could take my first review, take out specific events, and you’d have the same thing. It’s OK. Like the first one it sets the mood pretty well and there are some tense moments, but the later stuff gets kinda goofy. There’s a whole Norman Bates/kinda subplot with the ghosts that didn’t do anything for me, and the playing around in the Further… Eh.
The movie sits you down right where the first movie kicks off, you learn a little more about how the father first met the medium and his backstory. Then throughout the movie they show you hints Josh isn’t himself, and by this point it was obvious, I for some reason, really enjoyed the reveal halfway through. It was a neat touch. Another thing I liked, and it’s not a trademark in the Wan movies, is they seemed to go for subtlety at least in one place. In the beginning, Elyse, the medium, is walking around Josh’s room trying to find the ghost. When she walks into Josh’s bedroom, the door to the closet is closed, but after she turns around, it’s now open. There was no jarring camera movement, no screech of music, just a moment you’d have to be paying attention to notice. But other than that scene, all the scares slap you across the face just like the over-the-top ghost does before yelling, “HOW DARE YOU!”
That’s not to say it’s a bad movie. To its credit, there’s nothing like Darth Maul in the first movie where you roll your eyes and the silliness kills the mood. Except for maybe in the beginning when a detective calls and says forensics says the strangle marks didn’t come from Josh’s hands, which makes no kind of sense because at the end of the first (spoiler) you literally see him strangling her. Now, the ghost from the first movie took over Josh's body it didn’t change his biology. Despite its flaws, it does manage to keep your attention throughout and doesn’t get boring. But I don’t have too many other thoughts about it.
Is it worth a watch? Sure, it’s OK. Is it scary? It has its moments. Is it great? Certainly not. It’s OK, which isn’t too bad considering what some horror sequels turn into.