Ed's Review Dot Com

New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster, Evergreen Media Group,

Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Frances O’Connor, Madison Wolfe, Lauren Esposito, Patrick McAuley, Benjamin Haigh, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Simon Delaney, Franka Potente, Simon McBurney, Shannon Kook-Chun, Abhi Sinha, Steve Coulter

We heard of the warrens, Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) in the original conjuring (and some of their offspring) and they are back in The Conjuring 2. Ed and Lorraine are based on the real Warrens and gets them the notation “based upon a true story” in the opening credits. We all have heard of their most famous case, The Amityville Horror, but this story from their files is just about a bad, but takes place in the late 70’s in England where a single mother Peggy Hodgson (Frances O’Connor) is struggling to make ends meet for her 3 children, 2 girls and a boy. The middle child, Janet(Madison Wolfe) has starting having some problems in school and is complaining of seeing things which is how things usually start. But as things escalate quickly, the story gets out around town about the history of the house, and when it hits the airwaves, the church is anxious to bring Ed and Lorraine over to figure out if it’s a hoax or a real haunting. They learn that there is something much more sinister at work here then meets the eye.

This film starts out so cheesy (as all of these films set in the 70’s do, mostly I think to set the mood) that I was rolling my eyes and thinking I blew a lot on what would be a lousy movie. But boy was I wrong. This story takes a while to get going, mostly because we’re tortured with the Warren story one more time for the folks that aren’t keeping up. But once it gets rolling, this is a horror film of great worth. This team really has it down as all the related movies are pretty good. This is a long film. It took well over 2 1/2 hours but it was really intense.
Miss Wolfe did a wonderful job as the middle child who the movie is based around. All of the actors are pretty good, but this gal really nailed it. She had a very difficult part (as this is an R rated film from start to finish with the scares and violence) but she was certainly up to the task and I could find no fault in her performance. The house is extremely ugly which helps to creep us out, and the special effects, sound editing, and cinematography all join to make this a really scary film. The sound system in the theater I saw it in must be brand new, and it was amazing. For a while I thought we were in “sensurround” (ala Earthquake in the 70’s) with all the shaking going on. The building vibrated when things started flying through the air and crashing into walls and windows. Major kudos for the script, and the lion’s share to the actors who performed very well. This is a top notch, first class horror film, and an excellent example of how to do it right at this time in cinema history. See this one in the theater if you possibly can.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

KODA Entertainment,

Justin Long, Tyler Labine, Jess Weixler, Addison Timlin, Frances O’Connor, Shelley Long, Evan Jones, Michael Landes, Peter Syvertsen, James Detmar

Lumpy (Tyler Labine) is a wild guy, overly loud and obnoxious and best friend of Scott (Justin Long) and his new bride Kristin (Jess Wixler). Lumpy overdoes it as usual and messes up their wedding reception, but shocks everyone by dropping dead overnight. Scott and Kristin have to call off their honeymoon to go back to Minneapolis in the middle of winter to bury Lumpy. But as they try to put the event together, they learn that there was a lot more to their friend than they ever knew, and he was leading an entirely different life than they ever knew.

This was a rather surprising and off-beat movie. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I suspected Tyler to over play the loud and obnoxious friend, but he did one of the best performances in the film. There were other interesting characters that made the story better as it went along. In fact, Justin and Jess played the leads in this film, and they were shallow, annoying, and somewhat boring throughout, and were the weakest part of the movie. As I stated in the beginning, I wasn’t expecting a lot from this film, and so I was not sorry I watched it. Truthfully it was better told than I expected. Lumpy, who really is the main character in the story, dies in the beginning, but his life and times are the heart of the story. As such, it’s a story of a guy John Candy like…the lovable loser, even though he isn’t around that long. So the movie is a decent rental, not a great film, but well worth the time watching it on video. It’s a little different, and so that keeps your interest. I can mildly recommend this as a rental, and I did enjoy watching it.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog