It's a scary one, no surprise because it has a nun to do the heavy lifting.
The Conjuring 2
Grade: B
Director: James Wan (Saw, Furious 7))
Screenplay: Wan, Carey Hayes (The Conjuring), et al.
Cast: Vera Farmiga (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas), Patrick Wilson (Bone Tomahawk)
Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hr 13 min.
by John DeSando
“This is as close to hell as I ever want to get.” Lorraine (Vera Farmiga)
When a thriller-horror story is also a love story, I know I’m in the land of the Catholic Church, nuns, Christ, sin, and redemption. As for the love part of Conjuring 2, well, Lorraine and Ed Warren (Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) are famous paranormal investigators/demonologists (in real life, too) who happen to be married with a love that helps them through another demonic possession story.
After the real Amityville horror and after The Conjuring, they are drawn again to similar shenanigans in North London. Now, even after the long break, they are back helping an Enfield family in demonic distress. The scene is not your usual rickety old Victorian mansion but rather a rickety old council flat. Together with director James Wan’s expert tracking shots, this film knows just how to scare the hell out of the audience.
This case is about holding on to the one you love—the single-mom Peggy Hogson (Francis O’Connor) family hangs on to each other after dad has abandoned them while they are disturbed by the ghost of a “crooked” old man who wants them to leave his home. When all else fails the family, love brings them through, and in a sense so too does the old man’s love of his family keep him in this world, even though he died years ago.
As for the Catholic/Christian overlay, the demon is dressed like a Goth nun, and a priest is consulted because the Church is renowned for its ability to exorcise (see The Exorcist from 43 years ago). As a former fallen-down Catholic boy, I can attest to the power of the nuns to direct our consciences, indeed our very inner spirits, away from sin, especially of the flesh. The downside is that we can fiercely fear the devil wearing a habit. In the end, God or his son on a little crucifix around Ed’s neck will save the faithful.
You’d think in the Thatcher era, a demon in her outfit would be enough to scare a poor British family, but the Catholic Church works a better scare in habits because of its ambivalent role in many lives, savior and Satan.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
