The Conjuring was a shocking horror film. It combined every creepytrope you can think of (ghosts, dolls, music boxes, mirrors, you nameit), and it actually worked thanks to a genre-savvy director behind thecurtains. James Wan has proved himself a capable producer on projectssuch as Saw and Insidious, and with The Conjuring, he cemented himselfas a master of the genre. It had the perfect amalgam of horror tropescrafted in such a way that felt as fresh and spine-tingling as classichaunted house movies did in the &#x27;80s. The Conjuring 2 is another &#x22;basedon true events&#x22; tale that has us follow expert paranormalinvestigators, the Warrens, this time solving the mystery of theEnfield Haunting. <br><br>Similar to the Amityville Haunting, the Enfield Haunting sees anEnglish family plagued with a poltergeist that doesn&#x27;t seem to enjoythe presence of anyone in the house. What The Conjuring 2 succeeds atis giving us both character development and another great story, whichis exactly what a good sequel should do. The acting is uniformly great,but the true star of the film is James Wan. His shots are designed in away to imbue dread and stir it around our heads for a while beforehitting us with the scare. That&#x27;s what true horror lacks these days,patience. The longer the anticipation is built and the more atmosphereis created, the more unsettling the situation becomes until it&#x27;s like aticking time bomb that you anxiously wait to go off. It uses familiartropes, such as self-starting children&#x27;s toys, slamming doors, andsmashing furniture, but they&#x27;re used as tools to mask the trulyfrightening fact that this family is up against something utterlybeyond their control - they&#x27;re hopeless, and we can feel it.<br><br>Mind you, The Conjuring 2 isn&#x27;t without its faults. The runtime is ablatant offender. Pushing the 2-hour mark is never a good idea for ahorror film, and some fat definitely could have been trimmed. There area handful of cheap scares, audio scares to be precise - when the musicgets extremely loud all of a sudden and you find yourself more annoyedthan scared, quickly reaching for the remote to turn the volume down atthe risk of enduring another ear drum shattering noise. It also doesn&#x27;tfeel as unique as its predecessor, understandably due to the verynature of sequels, but there are moments that drag on long enough toremind you that the first Conjuring didn&#x27;t have these plodding plotpoints. For example, it takes about an hour for the Warrens to even getto England. Also, while in the haunted house, they&#x27;re able to sleepthrough some horrifying sounds that would snap a bear right out ofhibernation. But these dull spots and plot inconsistencies are few andfar between.<br><br>The Conjuring 2 is how a horror sequel should be done. It&#x27;s slick,stylish, fun, and at times, quite terrifying. When a horror movie makesme want to turn on the lights as I go roaming around the house atnight, I consider that a job well done. The Conjuring 2, well done.