Review of Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013) by Cdougall — 11 Aug 2021

Insidious: Chapter 2 has some good stuff going on in it. It does a really nice job of playing off of its predecessor, which it does in one of the first scenes, so it helps continue the story of the franchise.

But, one thing that works well about this sequel is that rather than just moving forward from Insidious, it also takes us into the past and gives us a lot of context for the Lambert family and their haunting and what happened at the end of Insidious, which helps to clarify any confusion that viewers may have had.

This adds some nice depth to the franchise. What’s even better is how the writing and directing do a really nice job of making both past and present culminate in the movie in a way that makes a lot of sense.

The scene in which this happens is one of the best scenes in the whole movie and gives it a nice climax. The continuity of this scene isn’t perfect, but it comes close enough to be very enjoyable. Chapter 2, as with its predecessor, does a pretty good job of avoiding character stupidity by having the characters react appropriately to what happens around them and respond in the best way they know how.

The methods again may be a bit unrealistic, but this is a horror movie so at some level they’re always going to be unrealistic. A concept introduced in Insidious, Chapter 2 takes us much deeper into the Further (as we know it to be called now) than it’s predecessor did, which is nice because the Further is part of what makes the Insidious franchise so unique and interesting as a horror franchise and gives it so much depth.

The acting is a slight improvement from its predecessor and as before truly embodies a family terrified in their own home yet again and figuring out how to deal with it with the knowledge they already have.

That said, the writing and direction aren’t as good as they were in Insidious. Whannell and Wan lose some of the finesse that they had in the first film which causes some of the scenes to feel a bit awkward and not flow as well as they did in the first film.

The actors do their best to make these scenes enjoyable and good, but aren’t successful all the time. Chapter 2 just doesn’t have the finesse and style that the first one had which is a real shame because the story and plot are interesting and had the execution simply been better this could’ve been the best movie in the franchise.

So, while Chapter 2 has some good stuff going on in it and is a nice continuation of the first movie, it falters in big areas and unfortunately falls into the “sequel is worse” trap.