With his low-budget neo-classic horror films of late, James Wan has faced an issue. On one hand, it's much easier to scare an audience when they don't feel like they're being tricked - when the horror feels more palpable. On the other, it's much harder to surprise that audience simultaneously. You know where to look and what to look for. Wan is brave to forego CGI for the most part and to rely on more tangible, physical effects, and he pulls out every trick there is in the Ghost Story Guide to Filmmaking. Trouble is, he's just not an imaginative enough director to truly spook us with what use he puts these tricks to. Monsters in makeup don't get any scarier the longer you look at them, and Wan gives us far too long to look, to spot the joins and the cracks and the wobbles. That's kind of the point, since it's nothing a bit of CGI couldn't solve, actually, but then I don't think he's aiming for the level of hokum he achieves, not even close. The ungainly title is pretty appropriate: this feels like a second chapter, dipping in to an unfinished story to gently nudge it along. Too many people in too many places doing too many different things, not that it's hard to keep up with (this shit ain't rocket science), just that it's kind of all over the place for ages, and Wan doesn't seem to have the energy to advance any of his malnourished threads to a higher, more original plain. It's basically just a reheated version of the first film, and not in a Sunday morning curry way - in a soggy chicken and chips way. The scariest part of Insidious: Chapter 2 is when Rose Byrne's godawful song from the 2010 film makes a reappearance. As if they could be bothered to write new music! They couldn't even be bothered to write a new plot!
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