Insidious: Chapter 2″
Directed by James Wan
Starring Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey, Leigh Whannell, Angus Sampson, Steve Coulter
Horror, Thriller
105 Mins
PG-13

Back in grade school, we learn about the five paragraph essay. It starts with an intriguing hook to invite readers into the text. Following from the content of the opening segment, we’re supposed to know what to expect for the remainder of the work. We then have three body paragraphs basically giving some meat to the text before we wrap it all up with a conclusion that summarizes events while making some overarching statement tying together the various strands of the piece. Be it a subjective opinion or an objective truth, a paper has to say something or else, what’s the point? A similar blueprint can be expected for film. Surely there are cases that call for deviation but when you fail to understand the most basic structure of story, there is no hope for transcendence nor is there any respite from piss poor narrative decisions. This is the case with Insidious: Chapter 2 – a half-witted, inconsistent mess of a horror sequel.

While the first installation (to what is sure to be at least a three chapter affair) started as a somber and moody horror-thriller and deteriorated piece-by-piece, this followup starts its engines in the rubble of that fallout. Deserting any modicum of first act set-up, things start going bump in the night right from the get-go. No respite is granted for those of us who want our psychology tinkered with. This is a full-blown pounding sesh. Doors slam themselves, baby monitors creak splintered whispers, pianos warble themselves out of key and there’s no scarcity of screaming, gasping, and jaw-dangling from those onscreen. Us in the audience however are cold from disinterest and disengagement.

As such, the first forty-five minutes of the film are purely awful – a hodgepodge of horror movie staples that wore themselves thin back in the 80s but somehow continue as if every horror audience has amnesia. Absent of a mere moment of breathlessness, this first act is also staggeringly unoriginal. Even in a market dominated by micro-budget horrors piggybacking on each other’s ideas, the recycled-ness feels built right into its DNA. There is not a dose of originality sewn into the framework, making the experience first-and-foremost an exercise in patience through repetition and wristwatch-checking.

Worst of all is the cold open which finds the audience throttled back thirty-odd years to the genesis of the body-haunting at the forefront of the series. A preteen Josh Lambert meets a young Elise (Lindsay Seim) and what follows is seven minutes of unadulterated crud withSeim’s flat-lined delivery and over-the-top gesturing coming across as a collection to make up a well-earned Razzie reel.

But Seim is not the only one dropping the ball as performances pretty much across the board are broadly laughable, save for a rakish Patrick Wilson who channels a bit of Jack Nicholson‘s Jack Torrence to amusing effect. Rose Byrne adopts the same mouth-agape, wide-eyed approach to terrified acting she harnessed in the first installment and its just as ineffective this time around. Between these two leads exists a slack-lined, tread-worn slump of charisma so it’s no wonder that they rarely share the screen together. I’d buy their romance in a Levi ad and that’s pretty much it.

Odd couple, Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson make desperate plays for comic relief but their ill-timed jokes just add to the sloppy pileup. They may muster a laugh or two but those chuckles only serves as admissible evidence of the tonal inconsistency ablaze throughout the film. In keeping with tradition, Lin Shaye feels out of place in any horror film and her cheery grandma facade just isn’t in keeping with the spooky feel Wan aims for. With so many miscalculations, it’s no wonder that he misses with such frequency here.

Everything exists either in shadow or bright spotlight with the cinematography from John R. Leonetti doing a dangerously sloppy job at making anything feel the least bit real. Having just served as DP on The Conjuring, which is a superior film in every way imaginable, the inconsistencies in quality are nothing less than confusing and easily damnable. In fact, Wan should be ashamed of the back-peddling he’s displayed here as this is a far cry from the game-changing part he played in The Conjuring.

Scathing review aside, there are moments where the film finds its footing and manages to put the chill back into the air. Wilson certainly gives it his all and is easily the most fun part of the ride. There are moments in the middle where the narrative pulls itself from the mire and seems like it actually may turn into a satisfying spookfest. In the end though, it is all for naught and adds up to nothing but a “to be continued…”Wan may have learned from the greatest mistakes of the first installment but it’s just a shame that he had to make a whole new set of mistakes.

Doused with easy scare tactics and devoid of a story all of it’s own, Insidious 2 borderson being offensively lame at times. But perhaps its gravest crime is its unwillingness to stand alone outside the pack. As a chapter in the mildewed pages of a novel, it reads fine. But this is no novel. Nor is it Lord of the Rings. Sequel or not, movies are charged with standing by themselves and Wan is smugly overconfident in assuming audiences will be hungry for more after such a scarcely entertaining film.

As a solitary feature, without what comes before it and will come next, Insidious 2 is wildly incomplete, capped off with more holes than a back country freeway sign in Alabama. When it comes down to it, Insidious: Chapter 2 has a terrible beginning and a terrible end, making it in a sense, a shit-sandwich.