Movie review: 'Insidious: Chapter 2'

Our 2013 movie marathon continues. This year, in additon to our annual Christmas night movie theater trip, I decided to throw in a nightcap by watching Insidious: Chapter 2. Most of you know by now I'm a huge chicken when it comes to horror movies, so know that this was strictly a way to repay my horror-loving spouse for suffering through so many romantic comedies over the years.

First and foremost: The first half of James Wan's Insidious scared the living daylights out of me. It was brilliant. I was totally excited by it, exhilarated even. Finally, an awesome horror movie! Then it descended into some sort of horrible abyss of crap, and I was left wondering what might have been. The good news: That did not happen with Insidious: Chapter 2. The bad news? I didn't like this sequel from the beginning.

This is not the worst horror movie I've ever seen, but it's certainly not the best. Ironically, James Wan made what I think is the best horror film of 2013 (and possibly one of the best in decades), The Conjuring. Apparently, he saved his very best for that one, because Insidious: Chapter 2 feels like a slapped together movie that relies far too heavily on the first film. Sure, I get that you've got to build on the original, but this is way too much. It's a total retread, and not a good one.

To be fair, Insidious: Chapter 2 does feature some of what I love about James Wan's horror films: extreme tension and adequate "jumpy" scares. The film picks up almost seconds after the first movie, and it attempts to fill in a lot of the gaps. It succeeds only partly, and while doing so, Insidious 2 adds so many additional layers, it becomes really confusing and, at times, utterly ridiculous.

I'm sure other horror lovers out there will disagree with me. Heck, even my spouse disagrees (he said it was "pretty good"). But for me, Insidious: Chapter 2 lacked any semblance of originality. The acting is adequate, but the plot just gets downright silly at times (I was laughing a lot more than I should during a horror film).

Have you seen Insidious: Chapter 2? Do you disagree with my review? I'd love to discuss this more with other James Wan fans here. I suspect there will indeed be a third film coming (they left it wide open again), so I suppose we've got time to sort all of this confusion out before that happens.

Photo courtesy of Screencrush.com