The first “Insidious” was fairly inventive with its premise of an alternate plane called the Further where demons exist. These demons have the ability to cross over into the human realm, and a few humans also have the ability to cross over into the demon realm. Two of those humans are harried father Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) and his comatose son Dalton (Ty Simpkins). By the end of the film, Josh has used his abilities to cross over to the demon plane and save his son, who comes out of his coma. “Insidious: Chapter 2” starts shortly after those events and aims to plow into the back story that explains why Josh and Dalton can cross over while the rest of the Lamberts, including dutiful wife Renai (Rose Byrne), cannot.
As the film opens, Josh is in police custody being questioned about the mysterious death of paranormal investigator Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye), who was instrumental to the family getting out of the first film alive. The police come up with no evidence that Josh is involved, so they are forced to let him go. He leaves to move his family out of the house from the first film and into a far creepier Victorian home where his mom Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) lives.
Creepy things begin happening around the house, much like they did in “Insidious.” When patterns begin emerging, Renai, terrified that she is going to lose her family, calls in Tucker (Angus Sampson) and Specs (LeighWhannell) from the first film to come and investigate. The hilarious duo bring some much-needed levity to the film, helping to cut the enormous tension that director James Wan has become an expert at building.
Tucker and Specs listen to Renai’s increasingly paranoid theories about what is happening, the most plausible being that when Josh returned from the Further, he wasn’t alone. She thinks he brought back a demon with him, and it is that demon that possessed him and made him kill Elise. Though they bumble and make crass jokes, the two ghost hunters also give Renai the only real sense of relief she is allowed to feel throughout the entire movie, mostly because they know about the Further and believe her crazy-sounding tales.
Whannell, who also penned the script for the film, does an admirable job of making the audience jump on a fairly regular basis. Though he deploys some of the same tactics from the first film to cause frights, director Wan frames them in such a way as to make them look fresh and new. The baby monitor that Renai heard demon voices on from the first film is back, and it’s a great example of how an old concept is made to feel new again. This time, instead of just jumbled voices and vague feedback, the monitor has a demon-like voice on it reciting nursery rhymes. Few things are creepier than a devilish voice coming through a baby monitor, especially reciting lines that are meant to be sweet and innocent.
Though Wilson was clearly playing the hero in the first film, Byrne takes over the heroic mantle in “Insidious: Chapter 2.” Josh seems to be vacant half of the time and possessed by a demon the other half, so it’s up to Renai to save the family. Because she doesn’t have the ability to cross over to the other plane and can’t rely on Josh for help, she becomes frazzled by the end of the film. Byrne doesn’t wither though, which is a refreshing characteristic for a woman in a horror film. Far too often, female characters in this genre are sidelined in favor of their male counterparts. Renai is anything but a sideline here, giving Byrne the chance to shine and prove she can do horror just as well as she did comedy in “Bridesmaids” or drama in the intense TV show “Damages.”
The film was made on a fairly modest budget, but Wan manages to stretch that budget far enough to produce some very convincing special effects. If “Insidious: Chapter 2″ does as much at the box office as its predecessor, then there will likely be a third installment, since the studios love to give the green light to low-budget, high-grossing movies. Whannell seemed to realize this, so he wrote some hints into the script that imply there may be more to the Further than meets the eye. There could be multiple dimensions and realms outside of earth or the Further, which could spawn countless sequels or even new spinoff franchises. Even with all these hints and sequel setups, ” Insidious: Chapter 2 “still stands on its own as a worthy and creepy second entry into a budding franchise.