Insidious: Chapter 2

Even if you succumbed to the dog-eared scares of ‘The Conjuring’, you’ll struggle to find magic in this calamitous sequel to director James Wan’s earlier, sillier haunted house movie, ‘Insidious’. Picking up exactly where the original left off, ‘Chapter 2’ simply moves Josh (Patrick Wilson), Renai (Rose Byrne) and their kids to Josh’s mother’s house, where the ghostly apparitions, spooky baby monitor sounds, deafening noises and laughable nonsense start all over again. Josh has returned from demonic parallel realm The Further, but has he inadvertently brought something evil back with him? Frankly, who gives a toss? Wan’s cattle-prod shocks will have you jumping – but his box of tricks is running low. Prattling ghost hunters Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Simpson) are mildly less infuriating than last time, but the male medium who uses lettered dice to contact the spirits has inherited their idiot mantle. For all but the most forgiving horror fans, this is a lazy, stupid and incoherent failure.