About.com Rating

Back in 2011, few people expected much from Insidious, the unassuming, low-budget ghost flick released in the box office doldrums of early spring. But lo and behold, it struck a chord with audiences, earning $54 million domestically and nearly $100 million worldwide. Three years later, Insidious: Chapter 2 finds itself in the opposite situation -- with a bigger budget and higher expectations -- illuminating the pitfalls with which movie sequels inevitably have to contend.

The Plot

Picking up where Insidious left off, the Lambert family seems to have earned some peace and quiet following a series of ghostly events. However, as more strange occurrences begin to mount around their house, Renai (Rose Byrne) and her mother-in-law Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) are increasingly convinced that their ordeal isn't over and that this time, instead of revolving around young Dalton (Ty Simpkins), his father Josh (Patrick Wilson) is the eye of the storm.

The End Result

Insidious: Chapter 2 is a victim of its predecessor's success. Standing on its own, it's a decent ghost story, but in the shadow of a terrifying neo-classic like Insidious, all of its shortcomings become magnified.

The script from Leigh Whannell, who wrote the original, is surprisingly shaky, with a meandering, cliché-ridden backstory for the mysterious old woman from the first film that removes all of her initial creep factor. Not only do the characters make nonsensical decisions, but there is a weird made-up mythology regarding the spirit realm that doesn't always pass the sniff test.

Luckily, there is some built-in good will for the characters from Insidious, but it's strained by weak elements like one particular instance of stilted dialogue that induced some unintentional laughs from the audience.

There is an intriguing time-travel element to the story that revisits moments from the first movie, but this serves only to further comparisons between the two films, to the latter's detriment. It rehashes scenes from the original and somehow expects us to find them scary (we don't), and while there are a couple of creepy moments, they are few, way too far between and lacking the inventiveness of Insidious's visual scare tactics. Seriously, how many scenes can one movie have revolving around a door that opens by itself? In fact, when Chapter 2 doesn't feel like it's emulating the first film, it feels like it's taking pages from director James Wan's haunted house hit from earlier this year, The Conjuring -- but with worse dialogue, more awkward exposition, more exaggerated melodrama and an overuse of genre tropes that combine to turn it into borderline camp.

Granted, Wan and Whannell are too talented to turn out an utter turkey, so there is enough in Chapter 2 to keep things interesting -- especially for viewers without elevated expectations -- but on the whole, it has the feeling of a film that was phoned in.

The Skinny

• Acting: C+ (The cast is solid -- virtually identical to the first film -- but struggles at times with the melodramatic dialogue.)
• Direction: C+ (Lacks the originality of the first film's visuals.)
• Script: D+ (Cliché-ridden, nonsensical, melodramatic.)
• Gore/Effects: C (As with the first film, there is minimal gore; disappointingly few examples of inventive character design.)
• Overall: C (OK on its own, but compared to Insidious, this sequel feels half-hearted.)

Insidious: Chapter 2 is directed by James Wan and is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for intense sequences of terror and violence, and thematic elements. Release date: September 13, 2013.

Disclosure: The distributor provided free access to this movie for review purposes. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.