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'€˜Insidious'€™ sequel delivers laughs, not fear

Rose Byrne in a scene from Insidious: Chapter 2 (AP/FilmDistrict)It’s no secret that creating a successful sequel to a scary flick is tricky

Hans Nicholas Jong (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Sun, September 29, 2013

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'€˜Insidious'€™ sequel delivers laughs, not fear Rose Byrne in a scene from Insidious: Chapter 2 (AP/FilmDistrict) (AP/FilmDistrict)

Rose Byrne in a scene from Insidious: Chapter 2 (AP/FilmDistrict)

It'€™s no secret that creating a successful sequel to a scary flick is tricky.

Don'€™t believe me? Try to name a horror movie sequel that manages to be both bone-chilling as well as better than its predecessor.

Almost every attempt to create a horror movie sequel has resulted in moviegoers being bored to death by horror movie clichés as well as villains who inexplicably manage to return from the dead despite having been stabbed, burned or bludgeoned to death.

Horror moviemakers have also exhausted every way to inject fresh blood into their movies, like changing up locations, reinventing villains, or even both (like when Jason Voorhees turned into an uber-powerful cyborg/robot and started a killing spree in space in 2001'€™s Jason X).

So when director James Wan announced a sequel to his 2011 horror blockbuster Insidious, it seemed he was attempting to conquer a herculean task.

Has he done it? Both yes and no. Yes, in the sense that watching Insidious: Chapter 2 in a packed movie theater is arguably more fun than watching the first one, as the sequel is funnier and contains endless scary moments.

But this is also the same reason why Insidious: Chapter 2 falls short of its predecessor. Insidious has the advantage of being the first in the series, and thus allows Wan to let the creative juices flow as nothing is yet established.

In Insidious: Chapter 2, however, Wan says in an interview that the sequel has rules and things already established that he has to adhere to.  

And it is apparent from the first 15 minutes in the sequel that Wan has wasted no time in re-explaining the previous story, as it continues the tales of Renai and Josh Lambert (Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson), an attractive, middle-class couple whose family are tormented by supernatural entities.

The movie starts with a bit of a flashback telling the story of the movie'€™s main protagonist Josh Lambert'€™s childhood, in which he is shown to have already developed an ability to travel in astral spaces.

After that, the movie picks up directly where the first film ends, with Josh'€™s wife Renai under questioning by a police detective about the death of supernatural whisperer Elise (Lin Shaye) at the end of the first film.

Clearly distraught by the detective'€™s theory that her husband might be the killer, Renai rejoins her family as they relocate to the house of Josh'€™s mother, Lorraine (Barbara Hershey).

And sooner than anyone can say, '€œLook! I think the piano is playing by itself,'€ the family begins hearing noises and witnessing strange occurrences throughout the house thanks to the ghost that Josh brought back with him at the end of the first film.

From here on, the movie plays like any other unimaginative horror flick as it mostly relies on frequently predictable jumpy moments to scare the audience, rather than building up tension like the first one, as well as Wan'€™s earlier release this year, the 1970s horror throwback, The Conjuring.

The reason why the first movie and The Conjuring are so effectively chilling is because Wan seems to understand that for a horror movie to be truly memorable, it needs to have a constant sense of menace that can be achieved through creating a creepy atmosphere.

The downside of relying on the jumpy moments is this: how many times can you be scared or surprised by a door that suddenly gets slammed before the effect wears off?

For example, when a character in Insidious: Chapter 2 goes to investigate a weird noise in the bathroom, she encounters a mirror cabinet, a staple in every horror movies (there'€™s even a horror movie called Mirror, which revolves around - you guessed it - mirror). Once the audiences see this, they immediately know that something, or someone, will appear behind the protagonist.

Besides the '€œbeen there, done that'€ scary moments, Wan also decides to pepper some jokes throughout the movie in the form of goofy ghost-hunting duo Specks and Tucker (Leigh Whannel '€“ who also penned the movie'€™s script '€“ and Angus Sampson).

Even when some scenes in the movie clearly intend to make audiences shriek in terror, they conjure up laughs instead, like when a ghost makes its first appearance in the film followed by chuckles from some of the audiences, probably due to the campy nature of the ghost itself, during the movie'€™s screening in Jakarta last week.

Ultimately, Insidious: Chapter 2 fails because it commits the cardinal sin of a horror movie '€” it simply fails to be scary.

INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2
(105 minutes, FilmDistrict/Stage 6 Films)

Director: James Wan
Screenwriter: Leigh Whannell
Cast: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Lin Shaye, Ty Simpkins, Barbara Hershey
Producers: Jason Blum, Oren Peli

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