Insidious: Chapter 2

Josh's mother attempting to awaken him from his Astral projection in a retrospective scene.

Parker Crane's mother, a twisted and evil apparition that haunts the Lambert family.

Dalton explaining to his mother that his bad dreams were back - indicative of other spirits pursuing his body as he enters "The Further" during sleep.

Josh in "The Further" - in a room full of murder victims of Parker Crane. Each spirit having their heads covered creates a sinister air of mystery, along with the blue hue of the environment and the non-diegetic sounds accompanying the scene.

After possessing Josh's body, Parker panics at the revelation that Josh's body is weakening and decomposing the longer Parker inhabits it.

In the further, Josh and Dalton travel back in time and are brought to a scene from Parker's childhood, and his evil mother whose shrieks are alarming on the ear for the audience.

Elise's friend Carl in the frightening scene where they explore the abandoned hospital where Josh's mother previously worked. Incredibly dark scenes, the group were entombed in darkness and silence.

Parkers room is creepily child-like with handmade rocking horses and old wallpaper. The floor covered in a shroud of mist creating an air of mysticism to the environment.

One of the film's more tense moments, as Parker is out to kill the Lambert family from within Josh's body. Dalton (right) is trying to avoid being found by Parker.

Specs and Tucker, the 2 assistants to Elise monitor the situation as Carl is inside the Lambert house alone with Parker. The pair carry over the undertone of comedy they brought to the first installment, they were annoyingly consistant.

 

 

Insidious 2 Review:

The Insidious sequel continues the story of the Lambert family in the aftermath of the first movies' madness. The audience is shown Josh's wife Renai in Police custody being questioned after the death of Elise. Renai protests her husbands' innocence and the audience is immediately shown that she is unaware in her husbands sudden change of actions and didn't witness the murder. The waters get muddier when Josh adamantly claims he cannot remember the events leading up to or during Elise's death. During the film the audience learns of Parker Crane, a cross-dressing serial killer who is haunting the Lambert family along with his horrifyingly evil mother who pressures Parker into killing others. The veiled 'woman' from the first installment was later revealed as Parker as the audience learns that it is Parker inhabiting Josh's body, with Josh's spirit still being in 'The Further". ' "The Further" is the name of a place where all the bodiless spirits inhabit and roam, in eternal limbo/torment and eagerly waiting for the chance to return to a human body and re-live life.  This film focuses heavily on the concept of Astral Projection, and I have previously been interested in that subject. As a result of this, I was immediately drawn in to the first film and was engrossed from start to finish. The 2nd installment answered more questions that were left with the first ending. The high strings crash the audience's eardrum in trademark insidious fashion during the opening scene, and the loud wails of the reverberated strings don't fail to grab the audiences' attention during a chilling/tense moment. - The use of diegetic sound creates realism (piano playing with no-one visibly seated) and plays on perfectly realistic examples of people that have spoken of encounters with the supernatural. I am of the personal opinion that horror films do themselves a lot more favours keeping the monster off-screen rather than on it, with the audience's imagination being a lot more horrifying than a depiction of a scary figure in my experience. The Insidious films have the balance of the off-screen monster (Moving objects, blank figures) which plays into my own personal fears, but they also have created horrifying apparitions that genuinely had my heart racing. I enjoyed this sequel, and put it on par with the first installment despite other reviews/articles.