Where I Watched It: HBo MAX

Audio Description Provided By: Deluxe

Narrated By: Tanzi Alexander

Well, I’m making my way through this franchise. Finally. Halloween gives me the opportunity to catch up on horror titles i either avoided or missed. After being pleasantly surprised with the direction James Wan went with the first Conjuring film, I figured I was in store for more of the same.

Not really.

The first film worked so well because no one really knew what to be ready for, or what was ahead. He held the audiences anticipation, making you wait almost uncomfortably long for that first real jump scare.

Here, Wan figures you’ve seen the first, you know what you showed up for, so why even bother to try and hide it from you? In a plot that sees the Warrens hop the pond and investigate a case in the UK where a child may or may not be possessed, the jump scares come quicker, and they’re a little less stylish. The first film introduced Annabelle, this film is responsible for The nun.

Honestly, aside from feeling like the special parts had been stripped away, the most unnerving part comes at the end when you find out that for some reason this family kept a piece of furniture. But why? WHY?

Luckily, Tanzi Alexander and her team at Deluxe are here to serve up some much needed improvements to the audio description. Instead of generic quick references, which the first film had, this one attempts to capture what it is about a specific demon, ghost, or entity that makes it scary. instead of just calling it something, we get horror perfect descriptions, so that we have the possibility of being as unnerved by the material at hand as the sighted community.

I’m not saying that this film is bad, for a sequel it’s actually passable. It’s just not as impressive as the original, and James Wan did not top himself. however, having already seen the third film (review of that one coming soon), I can tell you that he continues to just give up, and remove anything special at all from the series as it progresses. So, while the second is not the first, it is still worth a recommend, especially at this time of year.

Seriously. The narration reads to you the end title card, so make sure to stay for that. It’s creepier than anything actually in the film.

Final Grade: B-