The Conjuring 2 (2016)
The Conjuring 2: But This Time, Make It British | 3/5
Written by Noah Dietz: 4/9/2025
The Conjuring 2 opens on the Amityville house, then immediately (and self admittedly) moves to a different house in England to follow an incredibly similar storyline. Like the first film, this story is pretty basic in its premise. Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) are back, but this time they’re getting more direct opposition to what they’re up to. It’s the natural next step for the story, bringing a more focused cynicism into the picture, but its inclusion is so needless in the grand scheme of things that it might as well have never been there at all.
Gone is the creeping dread of Bathsheba, replaced by a cartoonish old man who’s angry there’s a new family living in his old house. We of course have Bonnie Aarons as the demon nun Valak lurking in the background, but she’s a force that’s haunting the Warrens more than a compelling force against our primary family. Instead, we focus on Bill Wilkins (Bob Adrian), the spirit who is haunting the Hodgson family. He’s a much less compelling antagonist than Valak, and his whole presence in this feels more like an adapted Insidious storyline with the Warrens slapped into it. The irony that the real-life haunting this was based on turned the Warrens away, not even allowing them in the house, is a totally different matter. Adding the Warrens into stories they don’t need to be in is another issue with the film as a whole. Though you might think it might be fun to see more of them, each time we swap perspectives in the first half feels like stealing time away from a much more compelling story that’s brewing in England.
Speaking of Insidious, there’s a lot about this film that feels like it was ripped directly. In the opening scene we see Lorraine traveling in what seems to be The Further, and the possession angle feels incredibly familiar. This is a partial complaint that could be leveraged against The Conjuring as well, but not nearly to the same level as we see here. The James Wan connection can’t be ignored, and further blurring the lines with Patrick Wilson being present in both franchises doesn’t help matters. It really feels that the connection to two simultaneous and similar franchises might have muddied the story we're telling here.
Additionally, I find the major plot point around the Warrens: their fear of Ed’s eventual death is a little frustrating. If they’re altruistic, as the movie and their real-life claims purport them to be, then even though they don’t want to die, they still shouldn’t shy away from doing what they think is both morally and spiritually the right thing to do. Unfortunately, I also find Lorraine’s storyline over the course of these films to be incredibly tedious. Her entire character feels so much more one dimensional than it did even just in the last film.
That’s not to say there’s not some fun points in this movie. As I mentioned before I do love The Nun’s presence in this film, and some of the camera tricks used when talking to Bill are incredibly entertaining to see play out. Madison Wolfe also does a wonderful job as Janet Hodgson, the primary conduit of the family’s haunting. There are so many decent pieces here, but I can’t help but feel they don’t come together into any kind of cohesive whole as well as the team might have hoped. But that’s how I feel coming back seven years later: when I first saw this in my mid-twenties, I thought it was a lot better than I have this time around. Much like The Conjuring, I feel this film holds onto the energy of a film meant as a gateway for a late-teen audience. If you’re less experienced with horror films, I don’t think you’d have nearly the issues I had with this on my revisit.