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.
The Conjuring: written by Chad and Carey Hayes; directed by James Wan; starring Vera Farmiga (Lorraine warren), Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren), Lili Taylor (Carolyn Perron), and Ron Livingston (Roger Perron) (2013): This haunted-house movie is based on a true story to only a slightly greater extent than Thor: The Dark World is based on my experiences at Kitchener-Waterloo's Oktoberfest in 1990. It kicks off what looks to be a whole series of movies about the adventures of Ed and Lorraine Warren, self-proclaimed ghost-hunters and demonologists who have been part of a number of what turned out to be America's great ghost hoaxes, including The Amityville Horror.
James Wan directs with a certain amount of skill, though much of it has been borrowed from other movies, most notably Poltergeist and The Exorcist. And the narrative lifts so many specific points from The Amityville Horror (book and movie) that it sometimes seems like a remake. Family buys a new house which makes them house-poor, setting off financial difficulties? Check. Little girl has imaginary playmate that turns out to be a supernatural entity? Check. Family dog hates ghost house? Check. Events seem to repeatedly spike at a time just after 3 a.m. in the morning? Check. Secret room? Check. Entire house unnaturally cold? Check.
Unfortunately, there's no invisible marching band, which I think is a goddamned shame.
The secret room caused the first moment of incredulous hilarity for me. See, the secret room they discover behind a false wall isn't just a room -- it's the entire basement. WHERE THE FURNACE IS LOCATED! I mean, they were going to find it at some point, weren't they? Either that or freeze.
Ghostly and/or demoniac shenanigans ensue. The ghost-hunters are brought in. At this point, the movie slides from simply annoying to offensive for two solid reasons, reasons made much more solid by The Conjuring's claims to be "true."
For one, an exorcism occupies at the climax of the movie. And we've had too many real-life incidents involving people killed by enthusiastic exorcists revealed over the past few years for this sort of thing to be at all dramatically compelling. Nauseating and disturbing, yes.
Secondly, at least some of the supernatural happenings end up supporting the idea that the Salem Witch Trials executed actual Satan-worshipping, magic-using, evil witches. Give me a fucking break. Just because those women have been dead for several centuries doesn't make their terrible fate any less horrifying. What a revolting development!
The actors do what they can with the material -- the four main adult characters are decently acted. Another blow to my ability to even remotely suspend disbelief came when I realized that Patrick Wilson's period hair and get-up (the movie is set in 1971) makes him look like Bob Odenkirk. So I thought, geez, what a great movie this would be with Bob Odenkirk and David Cross playing the paranormal investigators!
By the time we get to a scene in which Wilson must act as an "amateur" exorcist (the Roman Catholic "professional" being unavailable), we're perilously close to the hilarious exorcism of Jonah Hill in This is the End. And let me tell you, this movie really could have used Jay Baruchel clutching a crucifix improvised from two spatulas and spouting the lines he remembered from The Exorcist. Not recommended.
