Mr. Movie: ‘The Conjuring 2’ generates more yawns than howls

The Conjuring 2 is pretty much like 2013’s film. There are few surprises, and it looks like most horror movies from the past couple of decades. So it’s pretty boring.

All that made this movie fun for me is the stoned lady two seats down who screamed nonstop.

She did admit, however, to not going to many horror movies. As bad as this one is, it’s easy to see why.

It’s the 1970s and a family in England is harassed by an evil entity. The Catholic church wants to find if the entity is authentic, so ghost and demon hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren — played again by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga — rush to the rescue.

Just before leaving, Lorraine has a premonition. She sees a ghastly ghost dressed in a nun’s habit, and it threatens to bring about Ed’s death. So she just doesn’t want to go. But since there’s a movie about the incident, and since it’s — qualifying here — true, we know they make the trip.

Some think the little girl at the heart of the haunting is faking it. Since we’ve seen dozens of similar films, we’re one-up on the authorities. We know she’s not. So do the Warrens.

The Conjuring 2 is directed and co-written by James Wan. He directed the first one and again teams with the original writers. They add David Leslie Johnson to the mix. One fresh writer doesn’t make for a fresh movie. This one is slow, tedious, not all that scary and looks exactly like every other movie of its ilk.

The only real horror is having to sit through it.

This story was originally published June 9, 2016 at 1:06 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie: ‘The Conjuring 2’ generates more yawns than howls."