The Conjuring 2: Electric Boobooboo! (2016)

The Conjuring 2: Electric Boobooboo! (2016): written by Carey Hayes, Chad Hayes, James Wan, and David Leslie Johnson; directed by James Wan; starring Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren) and Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren): The Enfield Haunting, famous in England in the 1970's, is a 'real' haunting so goofy it pretty much debunked itself. However, in the world of The Conjuring franchise, Ed and Lorraine Warren are tireless crusaders against supernatural evil and not con artists. And crap like the Enfield Haunting is, well, a real haunting -- but even moreso! Now with 100% more Zuul-level demons than in 'real life'!!!!

If you drink a shot every time the director and screenwriters swipe from another, better supernatural horror film, you may be dead by the second hour of The Conjuring 2. Everything from the basement in Evil Dead 2 to the Danny-throws-a-rubber-ball scene in The Shining shows up. The Amityville Horror itself occupies part of the film's first act, with the Warrens debunking the debunkers who dare to challenge the veracity of The Amityville Horror, one of roughly a million 'real-life' hauntings the Warrens 'investigated' over the years.

Then we're in Merrie Olde Englande in the 1970's. The Warrens ostensibly operate as stealth agents for The Church (it's not named, but simply strongly hinted to be the Roman Catholic Church) as they investigate The Enfield Haunting. See, the Vatican relies on the Warrens to vet supernatural occurrences before sending in their exorcists so as to avoid public embarrassment should the Church accidentally try to exorcise a demon who doesn't actually exist. What, you say? Yes! No, seriously, what???????

So some 12-year-old girl gets punished for holding her friend's cigarette by having the forces of Hell unleashed on her and her family. No, that's really how the plot works in its depiction of supernatural cause-and-effect. A lot of rote supernatural stuff happens. A reel-to-reel recorder plays a key part, as does some demonology that seems... goofy. People who debunk psychic and supernatural phenomena are the secret monsters of the narrative: how dare they point out moments of clear fakery! Oh, the temerity of these godless atheists!

Anyway, it's a shitty film made by dunderheads that plays to an audience of brain-damaged Christians and fellow travelers with its Christian iconography and utterly debased and impoverished version of Catholicism. Of course it made money. Not recommended.

Amityville Horror All Right!

The Amityville Horror, written by Scott Kosar, based on the screenplay by Sandor Stern, based on the book by Jay Anson, based on material by George and Kathleen Lutz, directed by Andrew Douglas, starring Ryan Reynolds, Melissa George, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jesse James and Philip Baker Hall (2005): The original Amityville Horror (1979) was a financially successful, dramatically awful horror movie whose only greatness may lie in the Eddie Murphy comedy bit it spawned ("GET OUT!" "Too bad I gotta go!").


The "true story" it's based on has since turned out to be a hoax perpetrated by the Lutz family, though the original murders were tragically real. Subsequent residents of the house in question, in Suffolk County, New York, have reported nothing unusual about the house other than the hordes of tourists that stop by to look at it. Hoo ha!


This movie looks a lot better than the original, not much of a feat considering how crappily 70's the cinematography was in that original shitfuck. It's shorter, which pretty much eliminates any building of suspense. And it cuts the one scene I (and Stephen King in Danse Macabre) would cite as the first film's one moment of fully realized suburban terror, an incident in which the House appears to steal much needed money from George Lutz, cash needed to pay for a wedding. That was a good scene. So they don't even try to duplicate it.


So far as I can tell, the screenwriter realized how bad the original material was pretty early on and so decided to remake The Shining instead. I shit you not. So this is basically The Shining as written and directed by moronic hacks and produced by Michael Bay (seriously on that last one). Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George are spectacularly miscast as a young couple in the 1970's -- Reynolds's hairless hard-body alone pretty much erases all suspension of disbelief.


Philip Baker Hall struggles manfully with the underwritten priest part which caused Rod Steiger to devour the scenery in the original, and we don't even get the spectacularly bizarre bit involving Kathy Lutz's nun sister. Or the bit where the demon, its red eyes clearly light bulbs, perches at the window to glare at the Lutzes. Or the crazy part about the doorway to Hell in the basement.


Come to think of it, at least that godawful 1970's movie was sorta fun; this one is just sorta boring. The remake does have a terrific bit of fucked up continuity, though. At the end, Kathy Lutz spends all day at the Amityville library researching the house. When she returns home that night, George has turned into Mr. Cuckoobanana. What seems to be a real-time ten minutes of shenanigans ensues which ends with the family taking off in their motorboat...at which point the sun comes up. Because in Amityville, the nights are about 20 minutes long. Really not recommended.