James Wan's Insidious: Chapter 2, once again co-written by Leigh Whannell, begins with a scene that fills us in on what happened to Josh Lambert (Patrick Wilson) before the events that took place in the first movie. We get a glimpse back to his childhood and witness firsthand a younger Elise Rainier (Lindsay Seim) trying to help him and his mother, Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) figure out just what exactly is going on. From there, we move to the present day where Josh and his wife Renai (Rose Byrne) have taken their two sons, Dalton (Ty Simpkins) and Foster (Andrew Astor) and moved from their home into Lorraine's place. They want to put their haunted past behind them and move on with their lives, which under the circumstances is completely understandable.

After the move, however, things start to take a decidedly dark turn for the Lamberts. Renai starts to wonder if it wasn't Patrick who killed Elise (Lin Shaye) while both Dalton and Foster start to wonder who or what is in the house with them. Lorraine and Renai both start seeing a woman in white wandering the halls, an aggressive spirit who seems to have a connection to someone in the family. When things go from bad to worse, they call in some help from paranormal investigators Specs (Leigh Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) who, along with Elise's old partner Carl (Steve Coulter), start to uncover the truth behind the haunting, Elise's death and how all of this ties into the Lamberts' past.

The filmmakers behind this second film in the series (a third is already in the works at the time of this writing) aren't really treading any new ground here in terms of style or scares but the script does succeed in giving the supernatural element of the events a somewhat human grounding. The way in which the storylines of the past and the present tie into one another works fairly well and also serves to provide some welcome background information on the Lambert family that, again, ties into the reasoning behind the events that haunt them so. Although this often times feels like a string of jump scares and stylized visuals there's enough meat on the script to keep things interesting. For the most part, the movie works quite well.

Performances are pretty strong across the board here. Lin Shaye is great in her role and while it ‘s weird hearing her instantly recognizable voice coming out of Lindsay Seim playing the 1986 based version of Elise, both actresses are good in their respective parts. Once again Whannell and Sampson are amusing as the two paranormal investigators, adding a little bit of humor to the movie which is otherwise quite a dark affair, while Steve Coulter, reprising his role as Carl, is quite good here too. Most of the heavy lifting is done by Wilson and Byrne, however, the former actually getting the chance to take his character into some decidedly unusual territory in the later part of the movie. Wilson handles both sides of the Patrick character well here, while Byrne is convincing as the anxious wife and mother who is understandably conflicted about how to deal with all of this. Barbara Hershey is strong as the grandmother to the two boys that seems to be the conduit for much of the activity, equal parts strong and concerned, she delivers fine work here.

Wan employs a whole lot of interesting style here, using a lot of vibrant primary colors to help create and otherworldly atmosphere in a few key scenes to nice effect. At times you definitely get the impression he's trying to channel Bava or Argento. There are also some excellent locations employed here, the abandoned hospital being the one stand out as it's got a lot of really excellent, eerie atmosphere. By the time it's all done lots of things have made loud noises, lots of things have jumped out at you and the film has borrowed from both Psycho, The Shining and more recently Hammer's The Woman In Black in large amounts, but that doesn't stop Insidious: Chapter 2 from entertaining. It's a fun horror picture, one of those movies you watch with the lights off and the sound up and big bowl of popcorn at the ready.

Video:

Insidious: Chapter 2 looks great in this AVC encoded 2.39.1 widescreen 1080p high definition transfer. While a lot of the movie is shot with that sort of cool blue tint that Wan is known for using, this isn't at the expense of detail and it actually works well in the context of the film's atmosphere. Detail is frequently striking and particularly revelatory in facial close up shots, while medium and long distance shots fare almost as well. Black levels are very strong, which is important considering how much of the movie's finale takes place in the dark, while flesh tones look lifelike and accurate. Texture is great, you'll notice this not only on clothing but also in the wooden furniture in the various rooms and in abandoned hospital scene where things appear appropriately dusty and decayed. Shot on digital video, this digital to digital transfer obviously doesn't suffer from any print damage or grain and the well encoded transfer is free of compression artifacts or edge enhancement issues. All in all, the picture quality here is excellent.