With the success of the first Conjuring it was only a matter of time before we saw a sequel. After director James Wan pumped out another Insidious and ventured into the Fast and Furious franchise he returned to deliver probably one of the best horror films I've seen in recent years and definitely one of the better sequels to come from the genre (in my opinion). I liked the first movie, but it had its fair share of issues, specifically the rushed and clichéd climax. Luckily this sequel expanded on what worked so well in the first and delivered not only a lot of great scares, but a surprisingly well developed story and characters as well, especially the Warrens, who we get to know even better this time 'round.

This film takes place some years after the first and starts off with the Warrens concluding their investigation with the notorious Amityville house. While there Lorraine sees a vision of her husband's death, seemingly caused by a creepy demonic nun. After the vision the married duo decide to take some time away from all the paranormal investigating. Meanwhile, a family in England begin to experience a lot of strangeness in their home: mysterious noises and constantly being woken up in the middle of the night. Eventually the haunting gets upgraded to objects moving around on their own. These events are witnessed by a neighbor and even the local police before the media got wind of it and soon the Warrens themselves are contacted by the church to investigate.

Clocking in at over two hours (rare for a genre film), the flick gives us a lot of story and character development to the point that the Warrens don't even get involved with the family until an hour in. Some viewers may find it's running time a bit off-putting, but despite the length I thought the pacing was pretty solid. Even during moments of downtime we're given further development of these characters, notably with the Warrens themselves (who we actually grow to really care for), especially when we see how much they care for each other. In fact, there are actually some sweet moments in the film that helped break up the tension.

Next to some great character development there are also some impressive scares that involve a lot of slow and suspenseful build up. Aside from being creeped out in parts, I have to admit that one particular scene got me, which is something that almost never happens, so I have to give the movie credit that there's some effectively creepy stuff going on here. Director James Wan also plays with the viewer's perception, giving us many dark scenes and shadows in parts. There are even scenes with stuff blurred out, forcing us to really focus on things, like in the interview the Warrens conduct with the young girl--the camera focuses on Ed while the girl is blurred out in the background answering questions, but at the same time we vaguely make out these unnatural mouth and facial movements. It's definitely an impressive scene.

Of course as much as I enjoyed the pic it's still not without its flaws. One particular aspect I thought the movie could've done without involved a character called "The Crooked Man" (who was a cross between Slender Man and The Babadook). I like what the filmmakers were going for, but ultimately found him cheesy and completely unnecessary. Whenever he showed up it just took me out of the movie, especially since he looked entirely CG, despite actually being practical and portrayed by actor Javier Botet (Mama, [Rec] movies). Next to that, the film was a little heavy with CG at times, specifically in the climax, but luckily it's not too distractingly bad. I guess in the end the bigger budget had to go somewhere.

Conjuring fans will likely dig this sequel, which expands on the Warrens and improves on the scares and despite the lengthy running time it's pretty well paced with some surprisingly good character development. Even if you didn't like the first I'd highly recommend giving this a look, as it's just an overall great movie with an interesting story and some solid scares and effectively creepy scenes.