WhenThe Conjuringhit theaters back in July of 2013, it was a smash success – one of those rare R-rate horror films that connects with audiences on a massive scale. But such seems to be the gift ofJames Wan, the director behind three hit horror franchises (SawandInsidiousbeing the other two), who cemented himself as a box office force with last year’s record-breakingFurious 7, and who will leave the ghastly and ghoulish behind in favor of superheroes when he goes off to directAquaman. But first, we get one last attempt to capture Wan’s creepy lightening in a bottle withThe Conjuring 2.
The sequel picks up with paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorrain Warren, played again byPatrick WilsonandVera Farmiga, as they take on another terrifying case of domestic haunting and possession. This time, they travel across the pond for the famed Enfield poltergeist case, which saw a family of limited means – single mother Peggy Hodgson (Frances O’Connor) and her four young children; Margaret, age 13, Janet, age 11, Johnny, age 10 and Billy, age 7 – tormented by paranormal spirits.
From a pair of monitors on Stage 4 of the Warner Bros. Lot in Burbank, California, I sit at a table with five other journalists watching as Wan and Co. film the highly-anticipated sequel. It’s day sixteen out of fifty – the production will shoot forty of those days on stages and locations in L.A. and the rest in London. On the monitors, a haggard old man with reptilian blackout contacts, dingy teeth, and withered, sallow skin chomps, grimaces and wheezes at the camera in extreme close-up. The man, called “Old Bill”, is one of the spirits tormenting the family, and his target is young Janet, played by Madison Wolfe. It’s a strange thing to watch – a grown man making unnerving faces at a camera for minutes on end, but perhaps the perfect footage to set the mood for a series of interviews with the cast to the sequel of one of the scariest films in recent memory.
The Conjuring 2 arrives in theaters June 10th.
