There isn’t any easy way to say this: I was a little disappointed with Insidious: Chapter 2.
It’s not that I thought the movie was outright bad. No, it was decent enough; it certainly held my attention for the duration. What I have a problem with is that it’s not the movie that I was expecting/hoping that it would be. Which I suppose is kind of a petty gripe, because as a sequel it’s actually quite good, so take that as you will.
Insidious 2 begins right where we left off at the end of the first movie, so there’s really no way to describe the plot of the flick without letting slip at least some minor spoilers for the first one. So I guess you’re gonna have to deal with me being all vague and mysterious. This will not go well.
The story picks up with the family dealing with the fallout of the events from the first film. Everyone’s all shaken up, and while they thought that their biggest problem (being haunted) was solved, it quickly becomes apparent that it was not. Well, it was, but it wasn’t. Now they’re being haunted by different spooks. And when the identity of one of those spooks was revealed, I slapped my head so hard because OF COURSE. DUH.
The promotional materials for the movie (like the poster above) will lead you to believe that the movie is about the baby being haunted or possessed or something, but really that’s all a lie. There are a few baby-related scenes, but really the baby has absolutely nothing to do with the actual plot. And if she was supposed to, they certainly did not get that point across very well, because I have no idea why they even bothered with the baby scenes.
All in all, Insidious 2 is more of a murder mystery than your typical paranormal horror flick. I think that the best way to describe it would be Scooby-Doo meets The Shining. Only it’s less dumb than the former, and not nearly as scary as the latter. But it’s a pretty apt description, and the more I think about it, the more fitting it seems. What disappoints me about this is that the movie spends almost all of its time figuring out who the antagonist is and what their motivation is instead of providing us with more of the dreamland shenanigans that I loved so much in the first movie.
In fact, when it comes to the otherworld at all, it’s used even less than it was in the first movie. Again, it only really comes around in the third act, and this time it’s not as full of creepy, surreal imagery. Now it’s… complicated. I won’t get into it in detail, but the story ends up folding in on itself and interweaving with a few scenes in the first film, which is all really cool for a while. And then you realize how weird it is that somehow being in the otherworld allows the characters to actually affect the past. What? Yeah, it’s… it’s not great, especially since they don’t make any effort to describe how this is even remotely plausible or ties into the rest of the established lore.
I want to say that I’m being unnecessarily critical here, because I wanted to just turn off my brain and enjoy the ride, but man, I’m sure that there’s a better way they could have resolved the scenario here than shoehorning in some time-travelling bunkus. I can easily gloss over a minor plot hole or inconsistency here and there, but this one just made no damn sense. Fans seem to be trying to make a case that there is no “sense of time” in the otherworld, but it still seems like a bunch of malarkey to me.
Another thing that stuck out to me is that while the first movie was straight up dramatic horror, part two here has a rather generous helping of comedy relief. I’m not sure it was necessary, but most of the jokes are pretty good so I’ll let it slide. Also, like the first film, this one’s mostly devoid of glaring special effects, except for one scene near the end. In contrast to the rest of the movie, where everything looks very natural, this one bit really stands out. It’s short and fairly inconsequential, but I figured it was worth mentioning.
In conclusion, I did like Insidious: Chapter 2. It wasn’t as good as the first one, and that whole time-travelling bit was annoying, but overall it satisfied. The atmosphere was pretty much what I’m looking for in a horror film, and while it was a bit too big for its britches, I thought the story was pretty good. I just preferred the relative simplicity of the first one. A third film is confirmed to be in the works, and while I’ve got my fingers crossed that they’ll go back to the unsettling distorted reality theme of the first movie, I’ll make sure not to go into it expecting that.