Over a somewhat divided room, we made the decision tonight to check out the sequel to ‘Insidious’, quite decently titled ‘Insidious: Chapter 2’ I wasnt a huge fan of the first one, I didnt hate it, but I felt like it basically did the legwork so that ‘The Conjuring’ could pretty much perfect the format ‘Insidious’ was trying to work up. My partner on the other hand had a real soft spot for the first one, and today was her day to pick a movie, so; we carried on.

This entry picks up maybe a couple of days to a week after the events of the first film. Elise is dead, Josh is a prime suspect in a murder case and Renai, who has every faith in her husband, is starting to have some doubts. Josh hasnt been quite right since the events of the last film, and its pretty much confirmed more or less straight away that the being inhabiting Josh’s body ISNT Josh…

Meanwhile, the Lambert family move AGAIN into ANOTHER new house, Joshes mothers place, and ghosts and demons once again begin to plague the place. Josh tries his best to convince Renai that its all in her head, but soon it becomes to much to ignore.

Meanwhile Elises assistants from the first film visit her former home and stumble on an archive of VHS tapes covering most of her time as a paranormalist medium. and by a chance accident they stumble on a tape from the mid 80s featuring one Josh Lambert. THIS is footage of the visit Elise had to the Lambert house back in the 80s that Josh is told he had his memories wiped of in the first film…the pair start taking a closer look and find something shocking.

Enter ‘Carl’, Elises former paranormal partner in crime, who holds ‘dice seance’ basically he has a load of dice with letter on them, he asks a question, rolls the dice and the answer will be spelled out if theres a presence there. Carl gets summoned to Elises place urgently with dire news. On Carls arrival the assistants sit him down and play the tape of Josh, only its been slightly enhanced…Why is the tape a concern? Because standing in the background of the shot, too dim to see on the original footage, but visible when enhanced, is the future version of Josh watching his past self.

Carl consults the dice that give him a clue, which is transcribed by Joshes mother Lorraine to mean an abandoned hospital that Lorrain used to work at, and a terrifying mystery surrounding the story of a man named ‘Parker Crane’ comes to light…that could have dire consiquences for all involved, both living…and dead.

Quick caption review of this one; I liked it marginally more than the last one. Its literally more of the same across the board, my original reviews points pretty much stand once again for the entirity of this film, so rather than rehash them, i’ll just point you to my original review, but my thoughts there, were more or less the same here; and if your up for ‘more or less more of the same’ then your quids in here pal!

The reason I actually like this one a tiny bit more is 3 specific reasons:

1 – The pacings a little bit quicker, it still has a lot of moments of glacial pacing, but its quicker to get going with the monster show, it really revs up a lot sooner than the first film, and I found most of the resolutions to be fairly satisfying.

2 – Theres a significantly lower reliance on Jumpscares. The first film I felt really ONLY had jumpscares to work with, this film draws a bit closer to a supernatural slasher film, which gave it a lot more to work with in terms of styles and types of horror. Which endeared me to it quite a bit more. Its still a LOT of jumpscares for one movie, which is a bit of a shame, but at least we have some variety here…

and 3 – Despite the plot of this film going off to crazy and strange places, I actually felt that it was a bit more coherent than the first film. It actually wants to tell a more in depth story than just ‘people being kind of haunted sort of…or are they?’ Here its essentially a paranormal slasher for the vast majority of the runtime with a hint of science fiction thrown into boot. I find aesthetically its much more pleasing. and the tone is more consistant.

Once again, I cant say I out and out loved this film, but I appreciated the fact it tried to do something a bit more interesting in this entry. and I almost certainly think it’s better than the first film for it. Unfortunately you would likely have to watch the first film to fully understand and appreciated everything that happens int his entry. But! If they continue on this path, then i’ll be REALLY excited for ‘Chapter 15!’

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/insidious-chapter-2/