By Summer Crawford
Staff Writer
Insidious: Chapter 2 is a movie full of puzzling events and the logic of a crazed person. There are multiple pieces that do not quite seem to click into place until the end. Seemingly random faces of people and objects moving leave viewers on the edge of their seat, nervously biting their nails.
This stunning sequel is far more thrilling than the first, although it has a bit of a tendency to stray from the plot and confuse viewers even more.
The movie is set up in an alluring kind of way, not something very many good horror movies can accomplish. Insidious: Chapter 2 starts off with a riveting flashback from Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson), father of the Lambert family. The abundance of flashbacks along the way help both captivate the audience and give explanations for the weird occurrences happening.
The Lambert family is still haunted by ghosts, and the film jumps straight to the outcome of the first movie: Josh Lambert, while in the midst of trying to free his son from the parasitic souls of the dead, has been possessed by the spirit of a bride in all black. What is baffling about the beginning of the movie is that the wife, Renai (Rose Byrne), sees a photograph of a man, taken by a medium named Elise (Lin Shaye). Renai still believes the person living with her is her true husband. But who is in the photograph? Josh is shown to have the spirit of the bride taking over his body.
The Lambert’s decision to move into a new house again proved to be pointless, since now-dead Elise had previously warned Renai that the problem was not in the home, but instead with their son. Renai and the possessed Josh fall back into their same strides of living with their sons, but Renai is the one to discover that they are not alone in the new house. Determined to keep her family safe, Renai sets out to contact two ghost-busters from the previous movie who helped Elise, Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) along with psychic Carl (Steve Coulter).
Screenwriter Leigh Whannell seems to be saying, “Let’s play a game, shall we?” There are downright shocking moments of self-discovery with the characters, and gruesome faces of the dead constantly popped onto the screen.
There are times when the scenes gave clear meaning but others that did not add to the depth of the plot. Something that was done perfectly is the split worlds of young Josh and adult Josh, giving the audience a chance to see why things in the present day part of the movie were occurring from events in the past. You get to see one side of the story when Josh is young, then the other side of him as an adult, mix the two together, and voila. When you see both the present and past events at the same time on the movie screen, you get to fully understand the details of scary events.
Another intriguing characteristic of this horror film is the technology used. The camera angles and lighting were done properly; they made you feel like you were the person being haunted in the Lambert house, giving you the same sense of paranoia and fear that the characters have. It is easy to forget you are in the real world while watching the film because the events seem so real and are acted out with such finesse.
Insidious: Chapter 2 is cast well, had constant suspense, and made you eager to absorb the hints and formulate a conclusion. However, the film could cut down the number of pointless scenes and instead used the time on something else. For the most part, the movie is well thought out and gave vivid images of terror. This movie was a perfect treat for all those viewers looking to experience the thrill of fear on Friday the 13.
