James Wan's Streak Of Horror Films

James Wan, director of Saw (2004) and The Conjuring (2013), continued his streak of horror films by bringing us horror fans Insidious: Chapter 2 (2013), the sequel to Insidious (2010). In the first film, we are introduced to the Lambert family. Dalton Lambert (Ty Simpkins), the son of Josh (Patrick Wilson) and Renai (Rose Byrne) had an accident and fell into a comatose state for three months. Medical science could not explain Dalton’s state, so Josh’s mother, Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) suggested getting help from a friend named Elise Rainer (Lin Shaye) and her two partners Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson). Elise arrived to the Lambert home and automatically sensed a sinister presence. She explained to the family how Dalton is not in a coma, he was born with the ability to mentally travel to another dimension. He traveled too far this time and got trapped into a spirit world called ‘The Further’ by a red and black faced demon who intended to possess his soul. Elise informed the Lamberts that Dalton wasn’t the only one with the ability to enter ‘The Further.’ It seemed that Josh was haunted by a demon in his childhood, but his mother had Elise hypnotize him to forget. Elise declares that

Josh is the only one who can go into ‘The Further’ to save his son.
The second film picks up right where the first one ended. After battling the evil spirits from ‘The Further’, where Josh goes to get his son back, he successfully returns with him safe but something isn’t right. Something returned with Josh and Dalton from ‘The Further’ and wants to use Josh to harm his family. Elise was strangled to death by the evil spirit that overtook Josh in the final scenes of the first film. The Lambert family continues to be tormented by evil and there's a whole explanation as to how it all started.
Insidious: Chapter 2 begins with a flashback to Josh’s childhood and his first encounter with medium Elise and Carl (Steve Coulter). There was an old woman who appeared in every photograph of Josh, so Lorraine called them to figure what is haunting him. The only way to stop it was to hypnotize Josh to forget his abilities to mentally travel to another dimension. The film then picks up from the first installment when Renai discovered Elise’s dead body and realized that her husband may be possessed. There was an ongoing police investigation of Elise death, so the Lambert family moved into Lorraine’s house (where Josh grew up).
Moreover, the film had its fair share of the typical clichés. A child’s toy is thrown in the air by an invisible force, Renai is taunted by a ghostly woman in white that keeps on messing around with her baby girl, and a piano played a tune on its own. Evil still continues to haunt the Lambert’s and Lorraine is concerned for her family. So she calls Specs and Tucker for help and tells them that whatever was haunting her family is not done with them. Specs and Tucker decide to bring in Carl. He used his dice to contact Elise in the spirit world to find out who killed her. The dice lead them to find answer at the hospital where Lorraine used to work. Carl felt something while entering a specific room and Lorraine told them about the patient who was in that room, his name was Parker Crane. They all go to Parker's home where it is revealed that it was Parker's mother they were talking to through the dice, not Elise. Then they found a secret room with 15 dead people in it and newspaper article "The Bride in Black," who kidnapped and killed many people while dressed as a woman. As they get closer to finding out who killed Elise, they found some connections to Josh and the evil spirits that are haunting him and his family. Meanwhile, Renai starts to realize that Josh is possessed. He acts a little suspicious and doesn’t remember the song she wrote for him
James Wan is a popular person in the horror genre, he has gotten a lot of success from the summer hit The Conjuring 2.

I think Wan wanted to make Josh character’s similar to Jack Torrence from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Josh flashed a menacing smile like Jacks, and in one scene of the film, Josh is in the bathroom struggling to make the voice of the demon in his head go away. The voice says “You need to kill the others, it’s the only way to stay alive.” Josh went a little insane and he started to trash the bathroom and said “Shut up, get out of here, get out of my head.” The actors did an amazing performance especially Patrick Wilson. His character, Josh, is trying to protect his family, while the part that overtook his soul doesn’t want him to at the same

time.
Overall, I would recommend people to watch this film, especially if they have watched the first movie. Insidious: Chapter 2 is one of the best horror sequel films. The filmmakers did a successful performance in syncing the storyline from the first film. The sequel was able to answer any questions the viewers had from the first film. I liked how this film focused on the continuous battle between ‘The Further’ and the living world. I have seen this film many times, however I didn’t find it too be overwhelmingly scary, I found it to be interesting. There weren’t too many jump scares, so I didn’t have my hands covering my face every time it went quiet like the first time I watched it. Actually, I got lost into the movie by tried putting the pieces all together. I would rate this movie a seven out of ten because of how impressive the plot line is and it’s all put together.