Merriam-Webster defines dreaming as, “A series of thoughts, visions, or feelings that happen during sleep.”
For most of us, dreams are like an added bonus for anyone choosing to spend more than eight hours in bed asleep. However, how do we know if it’s a dream, compared to real life? Or maybe it’s so unexplainable that we are just lying asleep without ever knowing what’s real and what’s not.
James Wan, who directed, The Conjuring back in July, is back again with a sequel to another popular movie, Insidious. For those of you who were too chicken to see the original, what happens is a boy is used as a passive state for ghosts to travel to and from the real world and astral world (meaning a state of being that occurs before birth and after death). The family of the boy hires a woman who specializes in paranormal activity to stop from passing the ghosts in and out of their son’s body. After succeeding in the process in bringing the boy back from the astral world, the boy’s father who went into the astral world find him, possessed by a spirit that not only kills the ghost tracker but leaves the real father’s soul in the astral world.
Insidious 2 picks up after the family moved in to the father’s and mother’s house while the police undergo the investigation of who killed the paranormal investigator. With the family unaware of the fathers past, they soon learn that not only are the ghosts still around, but they are using the body of their dad to bring back an even more horrific being.
Overall, I thought the direction was solid. To pick up and lead into a completely different story after just learning of all facts in the basis is very challenging. The actors did a great job portraying their characters to be scared and overwhelmed whenever scenes of scariness took place. With any movie like this, I want to be hiding in my shirt or looking away just before I know something is going to jump out and scare me. Joseph Bishara who most recently worked with Wan in, The Conjuring, as well as the original, Insidious, composed the music used in Insidious 2. Bishara tries to find the right range and tone for each part. He wants to create that special mood one feels when we know something is just begging to jump out and scare us.
The make-up for the film really impressed me. Rather than throw a bunch of blood effects and scary make-up on the entity, simple black make up and ugly clothing is all it takes to get me to look away. Even when a boatload of zombies appeared, the make-up is spot on for each one, even if they’re only on screen for a matter of seconds.
I wasn’t disappointed on many things. The only thing I saw a lot of was jump cutting. One minute a character is at the bottom of a stairwell, the next, they’re halfway up the stairs. Whether the director wanted to speed up the movement, I don’t know, it just wasn’t something I liked. With completion of Chapter 2 and an ending that leads us only to believe the journey is still far from over, the Insidious chapters will continue to cause a stir for this generation and make us believe that possession really is, in existence.
