# Osage's Take On...INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 2 (DVD; Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)



## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

[img]http://www.covercity.net/dcovers/b7a59ceb5dcadb517d31ea3738a1e4cd[/img]*Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Disc/Transfer Information: Region 1; Anamorphic Widescreen 2.40:1 
Rating: PG-13
Running Time: 106 Minutes
Tested Audio Track: English Dolby Digital 5.1
Director: James Wan
Starring Cast: Patrick Wilson, Rose Byrne, Barbara Hershey, Lin Shaye, Ty Simpkins


IT WILL TAKE WHAT YOU LOVE MOST.


PLOT ANALYSIS:*

While the trailers for James Wan’s sequel of the rather kinetic ghost story known as _Insidious_ were indeed tempting, it was with some trepidation that I went into this standard DVD viewing – after all, here’s a so-called “horror” picture with a PG-13 rating as well as a quick-to-home-format release which normally indicates a stinker, as we know it. Still, I wanted to see it. The end result I simply don’t know what to make of; it had its truly terrifying moments while at the same time got wrapped up in such a ridiculously unnecessary plot thread – essentially the ghost of a man who dressed up like a woman and killed people is the “entity” that’s plaguing this family – that the whole thing came off as one of those somewhat forgettable modern day horror entries we see way too much of. With Wan in the director’s chair again and being a filmmaker that knows a thing or two about the horror genre – Asians in general take their horror _very_ seriously amongst the adult entertainment film industry and monster flicks – _Insidious: Chapter 2_ had a lot in its proverbial corner. The film definitely had style, mood and downright creepy atmospherics, what with Wan’s use of the classic “dead-quiet-until-a-defecate-in-your-pants-scream-moment” technique that can literally make you jump out of your trousers and do a dance worthy of winning a contest – but the aforementioned thickly laid-on plot that attempts to explain the backstory of what has been haunting Patrick Wilson’s character and his family just comes off as way too heavy-handed and downright unnecessary; it would have been better to simply explain this away with more demonic overtones.

The sequel opens with a flashback to the 1980s, where Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) is a young boy and his mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) has called upon the services of psychic medium Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) because of the paranormal activity in their house that seems to be connected to Josh (in this flashback sequence these roles aren’t played by Wilson, Hershey or Shaye, of course, as they’re supposed to be much younger here). When Elise attempts to hypnotize young Josh and communicate with the entity in control of him, she herself is put somehow under its influence. The film then fast-forwards to the present day, where the Lamberts are getting over their last episode of “rescuing” their son Dalton (Ty Simpkins) from the clutches of whatever-it-was in the first film. Psychic Elise has been mysteriously and violently killed in her attempt to free Dalton from this haunting entity, but when Josh (Wilson) begins to act mysteriously and his wife Renai (Rose Byrne) begins to see haunting visions in their house of a decrepit old lady, they’re convinced the terror isn’t gone. Baby toys turn on by themselves, voices whisper, chilling apparitions appear and disappear equally quick – Wan does all the stereotypical haunted house cues perfectly. Then, the two Lambert boys, Dalton and Foster (Andrew Astor), begin to speak to one another through a tin can contraption one of them made when one night Dalton hears a voice that’s not his brother’s coming from the can and which leads him to his closet. And this is just the beginning.

Josh’s mother Lorraine (Hershey) locates two shlubs who seemingly knew a lot about psychic Elise and who share an obsession with the deceased medium, even breaking into her secret séance room where she did her daring connects with the afterlife to look at some old videotape and revel at the weird stuff she’s collected over her career. They stumble upon the tape recorded at the Lambert house back in the ‘80s where Josh Lambert was under hypnosis and seemingly under the influence of some presence – the guys even notice strange figures or a figure standing behind the boy when they pause the tape a couple of times. The two psychic fanatics and Lorraine track down another psychic researcher that was at the Lambert house that night in the ’80s, one Carl (Steve Coulter) to alert him about what is still happening at the Lambert house now. Their research leads them, eventually, to an old abandoned hospital where Lorraine once worked and where she came in contact with a “Parker Cane,” an old man that died a day before Lorraine thought she rode in an elevator with the decrepit old fogey (obviously, Parker was a ghost in the elevator at that point). As they investigate further, they learn that this Parker was abused as a young boy by his sick, demented mother (Danielle Bisutti) who looked more like Cruella DeVille from _101 Dalmations_ than any maternal figure you’ve ever seen. Parker’s mother dressed him up in girl’s clothing and did all sorts of other rotten things to him, eventually leading to him becoming a serial killer that dressed in a black ladies bridal gown (I told you the plot got ridiculously thick). Apparently, it is the spirit of this guy that’s haunting the Lamberts and their children because, as Lorraine, Carl and the psychic fruitcakes figure out, Parker “needed” young Josh to pull his lifeforce from him (you know…the whole “the-dead-need-life” angle as seen in things like _Pulse_ and _Poltergeist_). I too was lost at this point.

_Insidious: Chapter 2_ spirals into sequences involving psychic Carl using his “spiritual dice” to contact the dead Elise so she can help them find their way through this mess with Parker Crane, the group breaking into the abandoned (and now supposedly haunted) Crane residence just to find the bodies of Parker’s victims covered in sheets and stored in a secret room of some kind, strange visions that hint at Parker’s abuse at the hands of his mother (i.e. they see him in a little girl’s dress with a blonde wig on) and more. At this point, Wan and crew take what could have been an effective haunting entity thriller and make it unnecessarily complex with this cross-dressing Parker Crane subplot which suggests it’s his spirit that has been tormenting this family all this time. On a side note, Barbara Hershey is no stranger to this genre, starring in the somewhat psychologically shocking _The Entity_ years ago which was supposedly based on a true story about a single mother routinely attacked by an invisible force night after night in her home.

Anyway, it comes down to this: Josh Lambert is now the one under this Parker Crane’s influence – and, supposedly, his mother’s too, hence why wife Renai kept seeing visions of an “old lady” in the house – and so a plan is devised by Carl and the psychic tag-alongs to get into the Lambert house, knock Josh out with a tranquilizer and somehow “enter” the “afterworld” the “real” Josh is still “caught” in to bring him back to take over his body currently inhabited by the presence of Parker and his sick mother. Got all that? As I said, it got ridiculously stupid and unnecessary after awhile and would have been much more effective as a straight-ahead ghost story (though the events of the first film would have to be explained away – I still think that one should have played differently too). The end sequences of the film depict psychic Carl going into the “afterworld” where he finds Elise and the “normal” Josh, Elise instructing them on how they get “out” of this parallel universe of sorts and how Josh needs to return to his own shell. You know how this ends, don’t you?

But – ah-haaa! There’s a twist! The final frame of the film depicts a young girl in a wheelchair being looked in on by psychics for trouble she has been experiencing, and on the “other side” we see psychic Elise looking at the girl…and then slowly looking beyond her at something that completely and utterly terrifies her, making her gasp _”Oh…my…God…”_ Obviously, there’s gonna be a third _Insidious_. 

[img]http://www.cinemablend.com/images/news_img/37894/Insidious_Chapter_2_37894.jpg[/img]*VIDEO QUALITY ANALYSIS: HOW DID THE DISC LOOK?*

Framed at 2.40:1 in an anamorphic widescreen presentation by Sony Pictures, _Insidious: Chapter 2_ looked solid for standard DVD. Many sequences depicted inherent softness – especially when compared with high-definition elements – so prevalent in the DVD format even to this day, but many shots were instilled with nice detail, solid color and twitch/noise-free blacks. Still, I didn’t detect any aliasing (jagged edges) as I did with some previous titles I reviewed and didn’t really note any problems with the transfer in general; sure, outdoor shots such as close-ups of the greens in foliage didn’t have that eye-searing snap that Blu-ray exhibits in this regard and shots further away were riddled with a bit of DVD-esque fuzziness around edges and in focus elements. But this is to be expected in the standard definition realm and I won’t let _Insidious: Chapter 2_ lose any points for that. 

[img] http://cdn.bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/1-Insidious-Chapter-2.jpg[/img]*AUDIO QUALITY ANALYSIS: HOW DID THE DISC SOUND?*

Surprisingly, the Dolby Digital 5.1 track here was quiet most of the time – of course, this was done purposely by Wan and his sound design team to give the “jump” moments in this genre greater scale, but I was taken aback by just how much of this silence there was throughout. Master volume needed to be jacked up a bit to catch dialogue comfortably and in so doing the “scare” jolting moments when something terrifying was happening on screen rendered the track shockingly effective. “Stingers” – audio cues that bone-chillingly cut through hushed passages in horror films – ripped through the soundstage when called upon and bass delivered crashing wallops when doors slammed shut from the paranormal activity occurring or other such moments. Overall, a pretty solid mix from Sony for this so-so horror flick. 























Thank you, as always, friends for letting me share and for reading; please discuss if you’ve seen this or even if you haven’t. I can recommend a rental for the curious or the horror fanatic though I get the sincere sense this could have been so much better.

Please look for my review of the long-awaited _Wolverine_ which I will have up soon, sometime around New Year’s, only because I couldn’t snatch a review copy from one of my editors until now.


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## asere (Dec 7, 2011)

I saw the first one and loved it. I hope to catch chapter 2 soon.
Once again thank you for the excellent review!


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

Hi Asere,

Thank you very much for your kind words and for reading; I didn't quite care for the first one, to be perfectly honest (of course, you are certified and bonafide horror fanatic so no doubt why you took to it!), and though this one definitely had creepy atmospherics and scary moments, the subplot involving this cross-dressing serial killer and the notion that HE has been behind these hauntings was stupid in my opinion and could have been handled more effectively :rolleyesno:...


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## asere (Dec 7, 2011)

I'm sure it will have many sequels like Paranormal Activity. I stopped watching Paranormal after part 2.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

They're definitely taking it in the direction of creating a franchise; with regard to Paranormal Activity, to me, the only "truly" frightening one was the original (which I bought on DVD) and while I watched the others they're not nearly as effective as that one was.


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

Thanks Osage for another great writeup.. I haven't seen the first one so I will not check out this one till I see the first one of course.. 

I used to watch a lot of "horror" movies when I was younger but I don't know, as I got older, I am just not as interested.. Granted, I do like to see some every now and then but it just isn't my cup of tea so to speak.. 

Never the less, will check out the first one later as a rental..


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

tripplej said:


> Thanks Osage for another great writeup.. I haven't seen the first one so I will not check out this one till I see the first one of course..
> 
> I used to watch a lot of "horror" movies when I was younger but I don't know, as I got older, I am just not as interested.. Granted, I do like to see some every now and then but it just isn't my cup of tea so to speak..
> 
> Never the less, will check out the first one later as a rental..


Yeah, Joe; you need to see the first one to even remotely figure out what's going on in this one...

I totally agree and know what you mean with regard to your second statement above -- as a kid I loved horror but as I got older some of the more graphic pieces of cinema like David Cronenberg's _The Fly_ remake and _The Beast Within_ just got under my skin and made me uncomfortable...

If you do see these, please tell me what you thought. :T


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## bxbigpipi (Feb 2, 2012)

Hey Osage great review, I've seen both of these Insidious movies and loved them. I like how they connected the 2.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

bxbigpipi said:


> Hey Osage great review, I've seen both of these Insidious movies and loved them. I like how they connected the 2.


Hey buddy!

Thanks for reading and checking in to the thread with your thoughts! Yes, the way (director) Wan connected the two films was pretty efficient...:T


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

On a side note, I realize I mentioned doing a review on _The Wolverine_ but I gotta say, after viewing the standard DVD just the other night (finally), I really don't have much to say about it; the trailers, in my opinion, were more promising and exciting than the film itself was. I was expecting more wild fight sequences and the idea that the old man Logan saved decades earlier when the bombs dropped on Japan during World War II is the one inside that Tony Stark-esque suit at the end was disappointing IMO...actually, I couldn't help but think that would have made an AWESOME suit for The Mandarin to wear if _Iron Man 3_ had been handled correctly and introduced Mandarin as a REAL character and adversary...:doh: :sarcastic:

Still, I think it's just that I'm not that huge of an X-Men fan; I didn't really care for any of the films before this and I don't think I'm gonna like the new one that's coming out soon, _Days of Futures Past_ I think it's called...?


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## ericzim (Jun 24, 2012)

Hi Osage, thanks for the write up on Insidious: Chapter 2. I enjoyed this one as much as the first part. I wondered how the DVD transfer compared to the Blu-ray and here you are accommodating me with an answer! This movie has scenes with deep bass that rattled my windows.


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## PassingInterest (Mar 29, 2009)

Osage--If you're not a professional movie reviewer, you should be. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with another _most _excellent write up.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

ericzim said:


> Hi Osage, thanks for the write up on Insidious: Chapter 2. I enjoyed this one as much as the first part. I wondered how the DVD transfer compared to the Blu-ray and here you are accommodating me with an answer! This movie has scenes with deep bass that rattled my windows.


Hey Eric,

Thanks so much for the kind words and for reading; indeed, I try and review both DVD and Blu-ray based on what I get my hands on. I thought the audio was sensational on this one, and that was in lossy Dolby Digital -- the Blu-ray must have rocked too.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

PassingInterest said:


> Osage--If you're not a professional movie reviewer, you should be. Thank you for taking the time to provide us with another _most _excellent write up.


Hello Passing!

Thanks so much for the kind words; it's most appreciated! I enjoy doing these for you fine folks -- I am a professional freelancer and magazine journalist by trade but I love doing media reviews the best. 

Did you like Insidious Chapter 2?


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## PassingInterest (Mar 29, 2009)

I _did _enjoy it. Very much.

Your professionalism shines through your reviews. What an asset you are to this community! Thanks again for your time and expertise.


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## tripplej (Oct 23, 2011)

PassingInterest said:


> Your professionalism shines through your reviews. What an asset you are to this community! Thanks again for your time and expertise.


I second this motion! :T


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## ericzim (Jun 24, 2012)

Osage_Winter said:


> Hey Eric,
> 
> Thanks so much for the kind words and for reading; indeed, I try and review both DVD and Blu-ray based on what I get my hands on. I thought the audio was sensational on this one, and that was in lossy Dolby Digital -- the Blu-ray must have rocked too.


The Blu-ray was fantastic. looking forward to part 3 and than perhaps buying the trilogy.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

PassingInterest said:


> I _did _enjoy it. Very much.
> 
> Your professionalism shines through your reviews. What an asset you are to this community! Thanks again for your time and expertise.


Thank you, sir!! :T :T


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

tripplej said:


> I second this motion! :T


And, as always, thank YOU sir, as well! :T :T


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

ericzim said:


> The Blu-ray was fantastic. looking forward to part 3 and than perhaps buying the trilogy.


Wow; you enjoyed these that much, huh? Excellent to hear from fans of these franchises.


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