Director Report Card: James Wan (2023)

11. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

I, as an average citizen, should know nothing about the business side of Hollywood. The names of entertainment company CEOs, ideally, would remain complete mysteries to me. I'm here for the art, man, not to learn about stock numbers. Unfortunately, we live in an imperfect world which means I know who David Zaslav is. Warner Brothers' 2022 merger with Discovery Media and Zaslav's appointment to the corporation's throne seems to have thrown things into chaos. WB's attempt to build their own superhero cinematic universe to rival Disney/Marvel's became a load-bearing wall in the company's existence, despite the series always trailing behind their direct competition. James Wan's "Aquaman" had been one of the few unarguable hits of the DC Extended Universe, which obviously meant a sequel immediately went into production. Zaslav, however, pinned the entire future of the franchise on "The Flash," the kind of behind-the-scenes fiascos that books are written about. (Following "Justice League," already an example of an equally staggering production clusterfuck.) By the time "Aquaman 2" made it to theaters, "The Flash" had bombed to such a degree that an entire reboot of the cinematic DC Universe was already announced. This meant "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" was the dying gasps of a failed endeavor, the unintentionally final chapter in an attempt to build an international brand. That's not the only reason the sequel failed to repeat the original's billion dollar success. Many other factors were involved in "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" being the latest victim of superhero fatigue. Few of them where the fault of James Wan and the rest of the creative team. As a genuine fan of Aquaman as a comic book character, let me attempt to autopsy what the sequel got right, what it did wrong, and why it failed to resonate with a public that ate up the first one. 

Since defeating his brother and ascending to the throne of Atlantis, Arthur Curry's life has changed considerably. He's taken Mera as his queen and beget a son, Arthur Jr. Balancing the duties of fatherhood, ruling a kingdom, and being a head-smashing oceanic superhero has been difficult though. As a global climate crisis cripples Atlantis, Arthur is faced with an old foe returning. Black Manta, still determined to take revenge on Aquaman, has acquired an ancient black trident. The weapon is possessed by the spirit of Kordax, the inhuman king of a cursed Atlantean kingdom that was imprisoned in Arctic ice centuries ago. Kordax is using Manta's hunger for revenge to burn Orichalcum, a powerful fuel source with disastrous effects on the environment, to free himself and his army. Arthur seeks out the help of an unexpected source to stop Black Manta's destructive quest: His brother Orm, the Ocean Master. The two will have to overcome their legendary sibling rivalry if they hope to save the world. 

Much of the first "Aquaman's" success, I suspect, can be attributed to the public's love of Jason Momoa's goofy dude-bro persona. Momoa's sex appeal and charm turned a character probably regarded as a joke by many into a huge moneymaker. Not unreasonably, Momoa was given more control over the sequel, first pitching an idea for a follow-up during production of the original. This means "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" features far more of Momoa's silly machismo. He begins the film with a monologue about how boring he finds his kingly duties and how much more he'd rather be fighting bad guys. The subsequent action scene is scored to "Born to Be Wild," among the most obvious of dad rock needle drops. Throughout the sequel, he extols the virtues of cheeseburgers, beer, and fist fights. Now that Aquaman is a dad, the sequel turns Arthur Curry into more of a meat-headed tough guy with a heart of gold that loves his son. It removes the cinematic Aquaman further from the complex character he is on the page while also showing the limits of Momoa's charms. He's amusing when doing the cartoonish surfer guy angle but the sequel is unable to add much more depth. Momoa and Arthur Curry with him becomes a more two-dimensional – and perhaps annoying at times –  caricature. 

This goes hand-in-hand with an overall goofier tone. There are multiple jokes throughout the first ten minutes about Arthur Jr. peeing in his dad's face. The image of an infant telepathically communicating via psychic waves emanating from his head crops up a few times. Topo the Octopus played the drums in one scene in the first "Aquaman," an in-joke that became an internet meme. Now Topo has graduated to a proper supporting player, leading to the hero dismissively making rude comments to the squishy cephalopod. John Rhys Davis as the Brine King, the odd crab humanoid, is given a larger role too while Storm the giant seahorse also gets the spotlight for a sequence. Arthur tricking his brother into eating a cockroach is a running gag. All of this and more contributes to a far sillier, jokier tone. Wan's first "Aquaman" didn't take itself that seriously and it was a license for the film to embrace a delightful, imaginative looseness. The sequel doubles down on the silly without raising the amusement and imagination much, making the limitations of this approach much more evident.

James Wan and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick supposedly took inspiration from the Silver Age era of comics when writing “The Lost Kingdom.” This is fitting, as that was the era when Aquaman became one of the few superheroes to be an active family man. During that time, Mera would often accompany him on his adventures, Aqualad and Aquagirl became part of the team, and even Arthur Jr. was sometimes involved in the shenanigans under the name Aquababy. This era would come to a definitive end with issue #452 of “Adventure Comics,” published in August of 1977. That is when Black Manta murdered Arthur's toddler son, in what is surely one of the darkest events in superhero comics up to that point. It's a notorious story and one the sequel hints at, with Black Manta abducting the child in the last third. All throughout production, the question of whether “Aquaman 2” would go that far floated over it. That would certainly distinguish the film from the rest of the superhero lot.

Unsurprisingly, this light-hearted superhero adventure does not climax with infanticide. Unwilling to murder a baby, the sequel instead attempts to emphasize the theme of family. Mera getting injured by Black Manta is what drives him on this mission. His dad and mother get larger roles, with the plot eventually bending towards the two brothers learning to forgive each other. It's a nice idea but it proves to be an element more informed than depicted. Amber Heard somehow became the center point of right-wing hatred after she sued her alcoholic ex-husband with a history of erratic behavior. How exactly this effected the production of “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” remains largely within the realm of tabloid gossip. However, we do know that Amber Heard's role in the film was reduced during reshoots. Mera is practically a non-entity throughout long stretches of the film. Meanwhile, it's tricky to fight crime with a baby strapped to your back, meaning Arthur Jr. spends a lot of time with his granddad. Ultimately, it's hard to take the movie's claims of being about a love of family when it intentionally forces the hero apart from his wife and son for long stretches of its runtime. 

Superhero movies being subjected to extensive re-shoots and essentially rewritten in the editing room has become standard practice over the last decade. You might go so far as to call it the Marvel Method. While we can only speculate exactly on how “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” was re-shuffled after filming, the effect is undeniably felt. The sequel is overly burdened with exposition and back-story all throughout. Concepts – like the nature of the desert prison Orm is kept in or this mysterious fuel source Manta is exploiting – are sloppily introduced in voice-over during visual montages. Seemingly important plot points, like a plague sweeping through Atlantis and killing Willem DaFoe's Vulko, are relegated to easily missed lines of dialogue. The worst example of this occurs in the last third. The entire backstory of Kordax and the Lost Kingdom – otherwise known as the thing that gives the sequel its subtitle – is delivered in one massive exposition dump with less than an hour to go. The impression that the film had a litany of ideas and concepts to introduce, but no organic way to set them up in the narrative, occurs throughout all of “Aquaman 2.”

These are not the only ideas in “The Lost Kingdom” that seem like they are going to be important but are abandoned quickly. The opening montage suggests that weary is the head that wears the crown, Arthur finding himself ill-suited to being royalty. This is a frequent theme in the “Aquaman” comics and seems like it's going to add additional tension to the sequel's story. Arthur busting Orm out of jail potentially makes him a traitor to his own state. Instead, this idea never really builds to anything. Similarly, earlier scenes also suggest that Atlantis revealing itself to the surface is going to be a major plot thread throughout. It's not, being mentioned in this early sequence and coming back for the final sequence, but never actually being incorporated into the plot. All of this suggests that many different ideas were floated for “Aquaman 2,” some of them being incorporated into different drafts and cuts of the film, and the final result is a compromised combination of all of them.

In other words, “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” is a bit of a mess, clearly at the mercy of behind-the-scenes studio politics and endless re-structuring in post-production. Despite that, the movie still managed to entertain me. Once Arthur and Orm are teamed-up, the sequel becomes a rather entertaining movie in the buddy cop mold. Two guys who don't like each other, for reasons perhaps more personal than usual, are forced together on an adventure. During this wild journey, they will learn to respect each other and maybe love each other too. Watching that play out, with recovering villain Orm proving himself or Arthur risking his neck for the guy, is the smoothest element of the script. Moreover, the chemistry between Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson provides a lot of pep to the second half. Momoa, in full-on goofy surfer dude mode, plays nicely off Wilson as the humorless Orm. That the brothers literally come from different words, and have totally different perspectives on everything, makes their dynamic juicier. When the sequel doesn't let its own overdone script get in its way, and focuses on the spark between these two, is when it manages to be most amusing.

Something that made the first “Aquaman” a lot better than expected was James Wan fully embracing the Saturday morning cartoon nuttiness of the material. While the sequel is probably too goofy overall, you can tell that the director is having a great time playing around with this mega-sized budget. Wan's loyalty to New Line Cinema meant he never got the call from Disney to work on a “Star Wars.” No matter, because Wan simply makes an underwater “Star Wars” here. A battle through the transportation tubes of Atlantis, an elaborate CGI dog-fight with high-tech vehicles patterned after various aquatic animals, brings the trench run of George Lucas' space opera to mind. The influence becomes impossible to deny once Arthur and Orm visit a seedy hang-out for pirates. Full of bizarre aquatic creatures, a colorful band of inhuman singers, and a corpulent and monstrous crime boss at the center, it's a moment clearly evocative of Mos Eisley and Jabba's palace. Both of these scenes are a lot of fun too, featuring creative applications of the underwater setting and more moments of the heroes reacting to the strange shit around them.

“Star Wars” is not the only influence that Wan wears on his sleeve here. Black Manta's base of operation is a secluded volcanic island. The burning of Orichalcum has mutated the local flora and fauna. Which means Arthur and Orm have to run through an island gauntlet of giant killer bugs and man-eating plants. Yes, Wan is allowed to get a little "King Kong" into this brew. The homage is made obvious when the two brothers have to run across a statue precariously balanced between a massive gorge. Putting some enormous, flesh-eating locusts and giant carnivorous plants in your pulpy adventure story is a great way to win me over. Moreover, this represents "The Lost Kingdom" at its most fast-paced and fleet-footed, getting laughs and thrills out of this mismatched pair running from and outsmarting some king-sized beasties. Presumably the script for "Aquaman 2" being so overloaded is why the film didn't go the extra mile and make the setting Dinosaur Island, to further the "Kong" connection.

Among the influences James Wan actually pointed out was Mario Bava's “Planet of the Vampires.” I suppose this is evident in the sequences of old, undead monsters being awoken from an ancient sleep. The finale of Kordax and his army of undead warriors is the most obvious example of Wan sneaking his horror influence into his superhero sequel. Black-boned skeletons, shrouded in green-burning fire, and wielding medieval weapons is something that could fit on a heavy metal album cover. These zombie-like elements are mixed with tentacles creatures emerging from the deep, which brings certain Lovecraftian vibes to the material. Probably my favorite horror-esque touch are those blood-drinking, skeletal warriors living in the desert and running around on bizarre, reptilian monster steeds. That was cool.

That's what sticks in my mind about “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.” As a comic book, action movie spectacle, it still delivers some impressive moments. The desert chase concludes with Orm emerging from the beach, Patrick Wilson's rippling pectorals returned, and an impressive melee fighting. A battle in Black Manta's base with a huge, robotic octopus vehicle features a massive anchor on a chain being swung around, a dynamic prop. When Arthur and Black Manta finally go toe-to-toe in the last act, after a whole movie building up their confrontation, the resulting fight scene features some smooth, clever camera movements as the weapons swing through the air. These moments remind us that these movies are based on comic books, of striking images strung together panel by panel.

That the action scenes are exciting are nice. However, the sequel seems to lack a convincing villain. “The Lost Kingdom” redeems Ocean Master, Patrick Wilson allowed to turn the over-the-top bad guy of the first movie into someone more sympathetic. That means Black Manta, now established as Arthur's arch-nemesis with a potent grudge, should rise to the role of proper antagonist, right? Yahya Abdul-Mateen II remains incredibly intense throughout the part, almost comically so. He is bathed with a layer of sweat in every scene, his eyes always wide as he remains utterly focused on destroying his foe. And Manta does drive the plot... By being pushed around by the ancient spirit of Kordax. The villain spends the whole obsessing with Aquaman but doesn't actually confront him until the finale. The result is that the film's antagonist feels like a flunky for an eldritch entity. Who, by the way, is defeated in a hugely anticlimactic fashion. Ultimately, try as the film might, it can't make Aquaman's comic book adversaries – whether it be his all-time most frequent enemy or the green-skinned, blonde, one-armed, accursed prince – into truly memorable characters. 

“Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” also includes a moral about global warming. Out of control climate change is melting the polar ice caps, creating increasingly erratic weather patterns, and causing disease to spread among the Atlanteans. This is an important element to cook into your mass-appeal blockbuster, since climate change is a very real threat to all of us here in the real world. Unfortunately, there's a reason fantasy stories like this were not meant to directly address real world issues. Because the polar ice caps melting, in the DC Universe, isn't bad because it'll flood coastlines and lead to the deaths and displacements of millions... It's because it'll unleash an ancient evil. Similarly, the ice caps aren't melting because unchecked corporate greed keeps the majority of the globe dependent on fossil fuels. It's because a high-tech pirate is burning an ancient super-fuel that was locked away centuries before. The result comes off as good-intentioned but hopelessly clumsy. The moral is twisted, making real world evil an accessory to comic book supervillainy. 

The overall reaction to “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” seems to have been a negative one. Many seem to agree that the sequel strayed too far into its own goofiness. The controversary around Amber Heard – a manufactured attempt to disparage a woman leaving an abusive marriage, in my opinion – nevertheless stained the sequel's reputation. A vocal minority of embittered fanboys were still stung about Zack Snyder's miserabilist vision of the DC Universe being tossed aside. A combination of oversaturation and the extended pause of the COVID pandemic changing the world's priorities ended the era of superhero movies dominating our pop culture, it would seem. All these factors combined to prevent “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” from being a hit on the scale of the first. It's a deeply compromised, incredibly uneven movie, that probably was never meant to support the stakes placed on it. That doesn't mean there isn't some fun to be had here. Jason Momoa has hung up his trident, next scheduled to play intentionally ridiculous space biker Lobo, the DC character he probably should've been cast as from the get-go. His tenure as Aquaman – it remains to be seen if another actor will ever fill the green and orange tights – represents an interesting, sporadically fun attempt to turn the much malign superhero into a global phenomenon. [Grade: B-]

Among Wan's unrealized projects was a spin-off of “Aquman” centering on The Trench, the man-like fish monsters that popped up in a few scenes in the first movie. That shows the director's interest in horror stories about humanoids from the deep. That fascination seemed destined to climax with Wan directing a remake of “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” as part of Universal's latest attempt to retrofit their classic monster characters for the modern age. He's also working on a feature adaptation of Lovecraft's “The Call of Cthulhu,” further suggesting that gilled horrors from beyond the briny deep are on his mind lately. It's been about a year since we've heard any updates on either of those projects, so who knows if they'll make it to the screen. Until then, Wan is staying busy as a producer, shepherding other franchises and filmmakers through his Atomic Monster studio. I think Wan is mixed talent, having made some movies I liked and some I didn't care for much at all, but he's certainly a more distinctive filmmaker than I previously gave him credit for. I hope whatever he makes next is closer in tone to “Malignant” than “The Conjuring 2.”

Director Report Card: James Wan (2021)

10. Malignant

You've always heard of filmmakers trying to break into Hollywood by making a low budget horror movie. The idea being that they could piggy-back off the genre film's success in order to make what I suppose some people would call “real” movies. As far as I can tell, this hasn't actually happened that often. Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson are only a few exceptions that come to mind. Having said that, after directing two billion dollar grossing action movies, James Wan certainly could have stopped making horror movies, if he wanted to. Instead, he's continuously returned to the genre that he clearly loves. The director took the blank check presumably afforded to him after “Aquaman” made a bundle for WB and spent it on “Malignant,” a weirder and wilder horror movie than any of the previous ones he made. While “Malignant” failed to recreate the box office success of “Saw,” “Insidious,” or “The Conjuring,” it was well received among a certain breed of horror nerd. In fact, it's also the movie that finally convinced me that I actually like this guy.

Madison has no memories of her life before being adopted by her foster parents. She barely recalls her childhood before her sister, Sydney, was born. She has moved back into the home in Seattle where they grew up. Her marriage is strained by the number of miscarriages she's had, which her abusive husband blames her for. After smashing Madison's head into the wall, an intruder sneaks into the house and violently murders the husband. Following another miscarriage, Madison begins to have disturbing visions of someone called Gabriel violently murdering people... All of whom are doctors, who treated her as a child. She discovers that “Gabriel” was also the name of her disturbing imaginary friend as a kid. With the cops suspicious of her connections to the killing, Madison and Sydney dig more into her past to discover a disturbing truth. Gabriel is very real and his connection to Madison is far deeper than she could ever guess.

“Malignant” can be described as a type of movie that is, when done poorly, insufferably self-indulgent but, when handled right, results in some of the coolest motion pictures ever: The director just shoving in stuff he likes for the entirety of the run time. As evident by all of his haunted house movies, James Wan is fond of foreboding old buildings, surrounded by fog and containing creepy attics. Extra points if it's an abandoned hospital too. “Saw” featured a mild detective element, which also appears here. The killer has long gothy hair and wears a black trench coat, not unlike a spectre that previously appeared in “Insidious.” It's only by some miracle that “Malignant” doesn't feature a creepy ventriloquist dummy. There's a sequence set in the Seattle underground, one gets the feeling mostly because the director had been wanting to utilize it for a while. The killer broadcasting their thoughts via scrambled electronics also strikes me as a premise that had been searching for a home. Somehow, “Malignant” doesn't feel like a grab bag of random, unrelated ingredients, all these wild premises blending together into one kooky narrative. 

Something else Wan likes, it would seem, is fucking around with camera angles. After being the cinematographer for the last three “Conjuring”-verse projects, Michael Burgess graduates to working with the franchise's creator directly. The guy clearly knows his stuff too. Another reoccurring element of “Malignant's” script is Madison experiencing Gabriel's murders as psychic visions. This is accompanied by the environment distorting and melting away, a fun extension of the grungy visuals Wan employed way back in “Saw.” When “Malignant” really starts playing, we have smooth, gliding point-of-view shots or overhead perspectives roaming through a home. “Malignant” begins with a frantic “Jurassic Park” homage full of playful Dutch angles. One of the most distinctive moments in the film prominently displays a massive Silvercup Studios sign in the background. Any fans of eighties genre cinema will recognize this as a shout-out to “Highlander,” Wan acknowledging his debt to fellow Aussie Russell Mulcahy. And I fucking love “Highlander,” so it's an unexpected nod I truly enjoyed.

This is not the only obvious influence Wan happily points to in “Malignant.” Early in production, the film was described as being “in line with a giallo film.” Upon release, a lot of people followed this thread and declared "Malignant" a full-blown giallo homage. I think that's overstating it. It's a murder mystery of sorts, with a black gloved killer that wields a distinctive knife. A pair of chummy detectives are also on the murderer's trail. However, they aren't the protagonists and the story eventually leans in a totally different direction, more akin to a modern revamping of an eighties monster movie. When Wan said "Malignant" was giallo adjacent, what he really meant is that it was Argento inspired. Which mostly meant drawing from the exaggerated color palette of "Suspiria." Not that this is a complaint. Wan has sprinkled some neon reds into his previous films and goes full-hog with it here. Searing red lighting stands alongside deep blacks and stylized blues. The result is a movie that is way more striking, visually, than the likes of "Insidious" or "The Conjuring." Callbacks to horror nerd favorites from the seventies and eighties is another thing Wan likes, another ingredient swirling around in the stew of influences that is "Malignant."

He doesn't stop there. When the film first debuted in theaters, I was told to go in as blind as possible. However, I still caught wind of the movie containing elements people described as "Henenlotter-esque." Wan also enjoys wild twists in the narrative, having included them to varying degrees of success from time to time. For its first half, "Malignant" seems to be chasing a hacky story swerve straight from the Donald Kaufman playbook: That the hero and the villain are the same person, suffering from a split personality. The script repeatedly suggests Gabriel is supernatural, as displayed by his various superpowers. However, his deep link to Madison's mind makes you expect him to merely be a repressed persona. Remembering the comparison to Henenlotter, I fully expected a "Basket Case" reveal: That Gabriel was a conjoined twin of Madison's, separated in their youth and now back for revenge. That he targets the doctors that experimented on them makes you think this. That's a lot closer to what "Malignant" is doing but this hides another, far wackier left-turn. That the script continuously kept me guessing, going in ever more unexpected directions, made that first viewing a delightful experience. For bonus measure, a "Saw" style twist – that an imprisoned supporting player is a lot closer than expected – occurs early in the story in an explosively dramatic fashion. 

What all of these choices represent – the comic book colors, the script always topping itself with wilder twists, a playful blending of genre elements – is the director and his team happily ditching the commitment to realism seen in his earlier work. "Saw" and "Insidious" got ridiculous in spots. All his ghost movies have paranormal plots. Ultimately though, these films take place in "the real world." They are rooted in a desire to be plausible, no matter how fantastical the stories got. Most American cinema is like this, committed to reflecting reality even with the inclusion of fantastical events. This has always been a detriment to Wan's horror movies because, deep down, he's a silly boy. I've always sensed that his heart belonged more to "Evil Dead 2" than "Seven." The Saturday morning cartoon theatrics of "Furious 7" and "Aquaman" allowed Wan to indulge this desire. With "Malignant," he finally brings that energy to his macabre side. Thus, when Sydney drives up to a towering mental hospital, she parks right on the edge of a perilous cliff. When the cops finally deduce that Madison has something to do with these killings, she's thrown into the hoosegow with a collection of farcical female crooks that seem straight out of a parody of women-in-prison films. Because why not? Why not insert a lady with a fabulous afro and a seventies pimp suit? Is there a good reason not to add Zoe Bell with a hideous mullet into your body-horror filled, giallo-adjacent, slasher-esque psycho-thriller? Bell gets to scream "What the fuck?!" in reaction to the movie's most outrageous reveal. That is how the viewer is supposed to respond too, with baffled disbelief that what was advertised as a "normal" studio horror movie went there.

In other words, "Malignant" is having fun. It dismisses the need to be bound to boring plausibility, not caring if you laugh at it or with it. This instinct informs the choice to have something else follow Wan here from his blockbusters. With a half-hour to go, "Malignant" suddenly shifts again into an over-the-top action flick. Yes, this hideously deformed movie monster with a delightfully weird gimmick also knows kung-fu. Did I mention Gabriel has super strength too? This results in an incredibly entertaining, beautifully unexpected sequence of the villain tearing through an entire police station, graphically snapping bones, crushing heads, leaping through the air, and tossing a chair a yard away and exactly hitting the intended target. "Malignant" fully commits to this swing into Hong Kong action, with skillfully choreographed stunts and a novel combination of puppetry, make-up, and a very talented contortionist/dancer to pull it all off. I suppose what I'm saying is more horror movies would benefit from having their bad guy, without warning, start throwing out some pencak silat moves over an hour into their runtime. 

Horror movies aimed right at the Fangoria crowd, assembled from random parts of seventies and eighties classics, aren't often especially deep affairs. "Malignant's" script is credited to Akela Cooper – the author of "Hell Fest," another underrated throwback to eighties horror – but is based on a story by Wan and his wife, Ingrid Bisu. Meaning some of his writerly quirks are undeniably present. "Malignant" is mostly concerned with catching the viewer off-guard with successively wilder twists. However, something else James Wan likes are stories of childhood trauma returning to haunt someone as an adult. That was the central thrust of his "Insidious" movies, the ghostly presence eventually emerging as a symbol of abusive parents, and "Dead Silence" played with that a little too. All throughout her childhood, Madison has heard voices telling her to do awful things. Once she received the proper medical treatment, this lurking voice was suppressed deep within her skull... Until a blow from her abusive husband awoke that subconscious personality. Gabriel targets the doctors that tried to destroy him but also Madison's sister and birth mother. The implication seems to be that Gabriel wouldn't exist without this primordial parental abandonment. He also sees Madison's foster parents having another child through biological means as further evidence that he is unwanted. This turns Gabriel into a symbol of mental illness, a monster inherited from Madison's biological parents that is always lurking in the back of her skull. He wants to destroy the people she loves, to remind Madison that she deserves to be alone and unloved. The title refers to the exact nature of what Gabriel is. However, it also refers to another type of malignancy born out of our genes that waits to sprout up again, like any tumor or cancer would. 

Indie horror guy J.T. Petty also did an uncredited pass on the script. If anybody else saw "S&Man" or "Hellbenders" too, you might also recognize some of Petty's sick sense of humor here. Rather than simply have its villain function as a metaphor for intrusive thoughts or a genetic propensity towards schizophrenia and depression, Gabriel is literally a horrible monster existing within Madison's physical skull that had to be shoved down and hidden. This essentially makes the villain an elaborate pun, a visual joke literalizing the idea of a suppressed personality. At the same time, this is the latest horror film from the man that brought the world Jigsaw, Annabelle, the Nun, and the Lipstick Faced Demon. Gabriel was definitely designed to be a new cool horror villain, the kind to spawn future Halloween costumes, that would've gotten a Movie Maniacs action figure back in the nineties. The long, stringy black hair and leather slicker recalls goth fashion and shock-rock imagery. Gabriel's trademark weapon, a dagger fashioned from a trophy his doctor owned, was clearly designed to be as immediately recognizable as Freddy Krueger's glove or the Lament Configuration. What makes Gabriel a lot more interesting than the director's previous attempts to reverse engineer a new horror icon is his especially grotesque defining gimmick. While utilizing contorted, twisted body parts for easy shocks have long since become a much-abused cliché, "Malignant" pushes it so much further than any other film, becoming a genuinely new approach to the idea that has an undeniable novelty to it. That grotesqueness might have made Gabriel too gross to become a new pop icon. However, the way the character combines rubber creature effects, twitchy body horror, and theatrical costuming truly works for me.

How much of "Malignant" is going for campy laughs over intense chills is debatable. The film largely strikes me as in-on-its-own-joke while playing the material fairly straight. This is true of most of the supporting cast. George Young and Michole Briana White play the detectives on the case. Young has a perpetual look of annoyance on her face, as if she can't believe any of this shit, while Young carefully tows the line between being sympathetic towards Madison's cause and baffled by what he sees. Maddie Hasson brings a plucky spirit to Sydney, someone eager to defend her older sister and that the audience can root for. All the actors playing the doctors involved in Gabriel's past, Jacqueline McKenzie and Christine Clemenson primarily, play the material with utmost seriousness. They treat the pulpy melodrama of the film as if they are living it themselves. 

A funny thing about even the best performances in "Malignant" is that they act as if they have been dubbed into English. If Wan truly was seeking to replicate the look and feel of a seventies Italian flick, I suppose this hard-to-nail-down effect was all too intentional. However, that odd off-beat quality to the acting is most noticeable in the film's lead. Annabelle Willis previously starred (not as the doll) in the first "Annabelle," so one assumed Wan must see something in her. Truthfully, her performance is kind of terrible in "Malignant." She speaks every line as if she's on the verge of breaking into an operatic scream. Her attempts to play Madison as panicked or traumatized come across as jittery and overdone. When the character has to be heroic, she is far less believable. It doesn't distract from me enjoying the rest of the movie. However, it is another noticeably weird thing about this off-beat flick. 

Just as making "Dead Silence" after "Saw" was a deliberate attempt to avoid getting pigeonholed as only a gore guy, James Wan made "Malignant" to avoid becoming known in Hollywood primarily as the ghost movie dude. It didn't exactly work, as "Malignant" failed to attract a mainstream audience the way the director's previous shriek shows did. From the admittedly small sample size I've witnessed, it seems the average moviegoer found this one too goofy or something. That same quality made it instantly beloved among horror fan crowds. As James Wan has plenty of other projects to fall back on, all "Malignant's" mediocre performance truly means is we won't get a sequel. Gabriel will not return to vex Madison in increasingly weirder ways. I would have liked to have seen that, especially if it meant Wan became more willing to mix his love of horror imagery, intense violence, and plot twists with the throw-it-in, go-nuts approach of this movie. Upon re-watch, "Malignant" has emerged as not only my pick for Wan's best horror movie but probably my favorite thing he's yet done. [Grade: A-]

Director Report Card: James Wan (2018)

9. Aquaman

In 1939, newsstands would be introduced to a superhero inspired by classic tales of seafaring adventure and the myth of Atlantis, ideas likely pushed into the zeitgeist by the naval battles of a quickly escalating World War II. The soon-to-be iconic character was named... Namor the Submariner, created by Bill Everett and first appearing in Marvel Comics #1, published by a company then known as Timely Comics. Two years later, in 1941, competitor DC Comics would introduce their own maritime do-gooder. First appearing in issue #73 of More Fun Comics, and created by Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger, was Aquaman. Though fairly distinct from each other in the Golden Age, the two oceanic defenders would develop suspiciously similar profiles over the years. Aquaman grabbed Namor's origin, as the offspring of a surface dweller and a runaway Atlantean royalty, while Namor swiped Aquaman's telepathic rapport with all water-dwelling animals. Aquaman survived the end of the forties' fascination with superhero comics by being the back-up feature in Adventure Comics, a book anchored by the ever-popular Superboy. That's how a long-time second-stringer – who didn't have his own book or even appear on a cover until twenty years after his introduction – would slowly eclipse his watery rival in terms of public knowledge. That boost in popularity can probably be attributed to Aquaman, now with the civilian identity of Arthur Curry, becoming a founding member of the Justice League of America in 1960. 

That led to the character appearing on the Saturday morning cartoon series, "Super Friends." That show, in one form or another, ran for twelve years. In that time, it would reach a far wider audience than the most popular comic book ever could, despite the typically subpar standards of seventies television animation. While Superman and Batman's reputation survived co-starring alongside Wonder Dog and Gleek, Aquaman's largely did not. The seemingly scope-limiting requirement that his adventures take place near water, and his powers being widely mischaracterized as "talking to fish," combined to make Aquaman a favorite target of hacky comedians for years afterwards. As late as 2004, the character was still public shorthand for a lame superhero among people who don't actually read comic books. That is the year the idea of a big budget "Aquaman" movie became a running gag on "Entourage." Such a concept was considered that absurd and improbable at the time. 

That was before the decade defining success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which turned relatively obscure and easily mocked characters like Hawkeye, Rocket Raccoon and Ant-Man into the stars of billion-dollar grossing movies. Punchline though he may be, Aquaman was still way more famous than those guys. This meant Warner Brothers was completely serious about developing an "Aquaman" movie as part of their somewhat late, largely ill-fated attempt to create a Marvel-like franchise around their pantheon of DC Comics heroes. And comic writers had made many attempts to rehabilitate Aquaman's image over the years. His stories got a lot more intense, his archenemy killing his infant son and his marriage to longtime wife Mera falling apart. He led the Justice League for a bit. He got a cooler costume, quickly abandoned because it was too hard to draw. In the nineties, a well-received retooling from Peter David focused on the mythic fantasy element. That brought with it an edgy new look that included a pirate-like hook hand and beard. When Geoff Johns brought back the Silver Age look and origin – while occasionally nodding at the character's status as the butt of many lame jokes – that was successful as well. Various cartoons and video games leaned into the observation that Aquaman is actually pretty cool, playing up his status as a noble king, a family man, a large ham, an environmental protector, and a legitimate bad-ass that can go toe-to-toe with Superman and Batman. By the 2010s, the likelihood of the public turning out for a big budget "Aquaman" movie seemed totally plausible. 

Thus, Warner Brothers went ahead with the idea, saying in 2013 that a film based on the character was a high priority. Aquaman would appear in Zack Snyder's hyper-grim "Batman V. Superman" before having a starring role in the behind-the-scenes clusterfuck that was "Justice League." While neither film were the hits Warner Brothers needed them to be, casting Jason Momoa as the ocean protector was extremely well received. Especially the decision to make sure the TV heartthrob was shirtless as often as possible. By this time, I was seeing the friends of my mother and other people who have never gone near a comic shop in their lives declaring they "loved Aquaman." Warner Brothers had begun using New Line Cinema's horror flicks as a place to recruit directors who could work efficiently for their superhero productions. This is how James Wan made the leap from "The Conjuring" to "Aquaman." The director chose the character because he perceived him as having lower stakes, seeing more freedom to do his own thing with a less beloved property than a better known one. This promise of "funderwater adventure" was the right instinct to follow. Utilizing the same eye for outrageous action that made "Furious 7" a billion-dollar grosser, Wan's "Aquaman" would defy the odds and also become an eight figure success.

Drawing mostly from Johns' New 52 run, "Aquaman" explains the hero's origins as the son of lighthouse keeper Thomas Curry and Atlanta, aquatic royalty fleeing an arranged marriage. Arthur grows into a defender of the seas, able to breathe underwater, swim at superhuman speeds, telepathically control sea life, lift submarines with ease, and survive freezing, crushing depths. He is reluctant to embrace his status as Atlantean royalty however. The water manipulating Atlantean warrior Mera arrives to try and recruit Arthur. His half-brother King Orm has gone mad with power, seeking to declare himself master of the oceans and start a war with the surface world. As the son of the (still missing) queen, Arthur has the right to challenge his brother for the throne. He's slowly talked into it, beginning an adventure that takes him and Mera on a quest to retrieve the magical trident of the first king of Atlantis and prevent war. 

By 2018, the formula for superhero movies had been well established. You run through the hero's origin and introduce a villain for him to tangle with, hopefully one related to said origin in some way. There's a climax full of CGI destruction, sometimes with a beam of light shooting into the heavens. By the end, our good guy fully embraces his status as a superhero, ready for further adventures in potential sequels gratuitously hinted at in this first film. Working with a script from "The Conjuring 2's" David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall, Wan's "Aquaman" does not challenge this set-up. Barely acknowledging that it takes place after "Justice League," frequent flashbacks establish Arthur's beginnings as the son of two worlds and his training from a wise mentor. The sequence where Mera takes Arthur to Atlantis for the first time, and he's introduced to a dazzling and technologically advanced kingdom he had no idea existed, is clearly inspired by "Black Panther." The plot eventually turns into a standard MacGuffin chase, as Arthur and Mera seek a plot device that will solve all their problems. This takes them to a number of scenic locations, the constant pursuit from Orm's henchmen allowing for frequent action set-pieces. It concludes in a massive underwater war, equal parts "Avengers" and "Lord of the Rings." Shout-outs to the comics appear right on time to get cheers out of the nerds in the audience, a bigger world and history established that future continuations can explore. 

In other words, "Aquaman" is a bunch of phooey, derivative of other movies and comfortable existing totally within the perimeters of its genre. Which isn't to say the movie isn't wildly entertaining. Wan and his team keep the approach light throughout. "Aquaman" is, in many ways, a fish-out-of-water – pun fully intended – romantic comedy. As someone raised on land, thoroughly modern and common in his attitudes, Arthur finds Atlantis to be a strange, unusual and stuffy place. Likewise, Mera is unfamiliar with surface culture. This is illustrated in a cute scene where she makes friends with a little girl in an Italian villa. The two can't stand each other at first but, as Arthur proves his worthiness and Mera lightens up a little, they fall for each other. It's a cute progression, the movie following these two misfits as they learn more about each other's world and slowly develop feelings for one another. It's a good way to introduce the audience to this world and this duo. 

Making "Aquaman" into a partial rom-com plays to its leading man's strengths. In the comics, Aquaman is usually ambiguous about his status as king and often torn between the world he was raised in and the world he was born to protect. How often he uses humor to lighten his load or how much he sees superheroing as a burden or a joy varies from writer to writer. Mostly, he's a serious guy, his wife and family keeping him grounded as he grapples with protecting the seas and tricky Atlantean politics. As played by Jason Momoa, Arthur Curry becomes a long-haired, beer-gulping dude's dude. He is a super-macho brawler who carries a secret pain about being abandoned by his mom and rejected by both the sea and the surface. Mostly, he copes by being kind of a goofball. He's a stinky smart-ass that seems dim (though actually isn't) but mostly rejects the casual sexism once associated with the surfer bro attitude. He's a modern wholesome himbo, designed to appeal to a certain population of women who like their guys hunky and hyper-masculine but also sweet and non-intimidating. This makes Aquaman into a totally different character from what exists in the comics, not dissimilar to how Thor acts in the later Marvel movies. The script bends Aquaman around Jason Momoa's celebrity image as a self-aware sex symbol and chill biker guy, also incorporating his Polynesian heritage into Arthur's backstory. As a fan of the character's traditional portrayal, it definitely took me a little time to adapt to this wildly different take on the character. Momoa's schtick is amusing and he's an affable screen presence, making it difficult not to eventually be won over by him. I don't know if it's how I would've chosen to depict Aquaman in a movie but it is, nevertheless, a winning combination. 

Wan's "Aquaman" never comments on the cultural meme of its hero "talking to fish." In fact, Arthur Curry's telepathic bond with all the animals in the sea is shown as a devastating superpower with many practical combat applications. Don't think for a minute that the movie isn't well aware of how goofy this material supposedly is. Like many modern superhero films, "Aquaman" often uses comedy to let mainstream audiences know that it also thinks this shit is stupid and lame. One of Orm's henchman gets his head dunked in a toilet bowl. The chase through Florence often pauses for disbelieving stares from the locals. Momoa often doesn't go long without cracking a joke of some kind, which doesn't stop when the stakes are high. There's been much debate over taking such an approach to comic book material. When handled badly, random slapstick comedy and constant one-liners can drain any tension or grandeur from the story, coming off as if the filmmaker is embarrassed to be working on this nerd shit and regards what he's adapting with patronizing insincerity, if not outright contempt. 

Perhaps James Wan was a little embarrassed to be working on an "Aquaman." There are definitely times when the film feels too in-on-its-own-joke. However, any director who considers Ed and Lorraine Warren to be real world defenders of good clearly isn't in any place to look down on Aquaman. For as much as the film jokes about its fantastical scenario, there's also a full-blown embracing of the wackiness of what we are seeing here. An octopus playing the drums or narwhals impaling people with their curly horns becoming deadly are silly but it's also awesome. The film is filled with humanoid fish creatures, crab men, laser guns, pocket dimensions and magical tridents. Rather than flee from the more “comic-book-y” elements of the material, the film embraces it. Aquaman rides a giant seahorse, Mera wears a gown made of jellyfish, and Orm actually refers to himself by the supervillain name of Ocean Master. The story is fully absorbed in the absurd mythology of its setting, throwing around names like Xebel and Atlan and the Brine King without any shame.

Another smart decision “Aquaman” makes tonally is packing the supporting cast with sturdy actors who never blink in the face of all this silliness. If Jason Momoa's lead performance is mostly tongue-in-cheek, he's surrounded by performers who play the material as grand opera. Nicole Kidman, as the misplaced queen, and Patrick Wilson as Orm all approach their roles as larger-than-life mythic figures. Wilson brings an edge of Olympian melodrama to his gestures and dialogue, while Kidman is totally committed to the nonsense she has to spew here. Willem Dafoe is similarly straight-faced in the even more standard role of Vulko, a generic wise mentor role imbued with Dafoe's gravelly charm. Amber Heard and Dolph Lundgren – inexplicably cast as daughter and father – aren't consumite pros on the level of Kidman or Dafoe. Heard is never as enchanting as Mera needs to be, doing better as the bitchy straight-woman to Momoa's antics. Dolph does bring some regality to a mostly thankless supporting part. Mostly, it's simply neat to see him in a high-profile film like this after years in the direct-to-video ghetto.  

As in “Furious 7,” Wan approaches the action in a largely theatrical style. The action scene in Italy feels the most like a sequence from one of the “Fast” movies, a high-impact foot chase across the rooftops of the village. People smashing through walls and buildings stand in for cars and trucks flipping and crashing. The climax of this sequence is a cool shot of Black Manta tossed from a cliff, the camera careening down the mountainside with him. The superhero genre allows for flashier special effects, of course. Mera's hard water powers lead to several novel images. When Aquaman boards a submarine under siege from pirates, the movie delights in using the tight interiors of the location to creates some comic panel-like shots. Don Burgess' cinematography suits this material much better than “The Conjuring,” the camera weaving dramatically through the CGI sets. The oceanic setting lends itself to some colorful visuals, like Atlantis being lit by bioluminescence or a flare falling through the deep.

The latter image is the climax of another high-light of “Aquaman.” On their quest to locate the mythical Trident of Atlan, Arthur and Mera encounter the Trench. That's an underwater race of monstrous fish-men, heavily recalling Lovecraft's Deep Ones and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The set piece, of the monsters swarming around Arthur and Mera on a storm-tossed boat, heavily recalls Wan's horror work. This is not the only time the director is clearly using the superhero movie budget to indulge his inner monster kid. The plot weaves in a lost world setting, allowing some dinosaurs to appear. This is shortly before the movie throws in a proper kaiju, in the form of a Kraken-like enormous cephalopod. All of these elements are taken from the “Aquaman” comics. However, you can tell the chance to include stuff he obviously loves was probably a deciding factor in Wan choosing this superhero over The Flash or anyone else. 

In its climax, “Aquaman” fully embraces its status as computer-generated spectacle. The finale is a massive underwater war sequence, with lots of crustacean casualties, Mosasaur steeds, subaquatic explosions, and every thing that swims and crawls in the sea being weaponized. It is an unending assault on all the senses, unbearably loud and frenetic, with any number of digital effects being tossed directly into the viewer. (Literally if you saw the movie projected in 3D.)  Alternatively, it is a gleefully goofy burst of epic nonsense, the movie going out of its way to top itself in the last half-hour. Just when the film seems to have pushed past the point of total ridiculousness, it's reeled back in for the final showdown between Arthur and Orm, which smartly takes place as a one-on-one melee. If you have the patience or tolerance for superhero movie shenanigans, there's no denying that this is a well done example. I suppose it depends on if you think a fleet of murderous orcas coming to the rescue of a John Rhys Davis-voiced crab monster is delightful or intolerable. 

“Aquaman” wouldn't be a modern superhero movie if it didn't go out of its way to leave some narrative crumbs for a sequel to exploit. This is mostly apparent in the subplot surrounding Black Manta. Anybody a little familiar with the source material probably know that Black Manta is Aquaman's number one foe and most persistent enemy. Ocean Master obviously makes more sense as the bad guy for a first “Aquaman” adventure but he wasn't on the Legion of Doom, so who cares, right? The movie, smartly skipping the militant black separatist or evil autism origins, goes out of its way to establish the personal grudge between the sea pirate and the next King of Atlantis. The distinctively helmeted enemy weaves in and out of the story, never quite justifying his appearances beyond the expectation that he'll get more to do next time. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, an actor Hollywood was really insisting on turning into a big star around this time, cranks the blustery, sweaty intensity up as high as possible in the part. It's the most blatant example of the movie setting up shit for a follow-up but, I will say, at least the suit looks really good. 

In fact, all the costumes in “Aquaman” are quite good. Arthur suiting up in the orange and green is rightfully treated as a cheer-worthy moment, while Mera and Orm's own duds look suitably accurate to the comic book source material. Rupert Gregson-Williams' score is full of sweeping themes and ear-catching melodies, adding a properly grand feeling. As a final display of the sincerity with which it approaches the characters, the end credits are accompanied by a nineties-style love ballad written specifically for the film. Obviously, I'm unusually fond of this particular strain of bullshit. Considering how little respect Aquaman usually gets as a character, his big movie only being a little self-reflectively dumb might have been a best case scenario. By no means rising above the standards of the genre, it's still a joyfully silly two hours and twenty-three minutes. Any movie that casts Julie Andrews as a sea monster is having too much fun to ultimately denied. That the public ate it up is all the more delightful to me. The “Aquaman” movie pleased this long-time fan while also making this particular corner of the DC universe appealing to a wide audience. It also beat that other aquatic superhero to the big screen by four years, once again solidifying Aquaman as the preferred deep sea defender by the public at large. [Grade: B+]

Director Report Card: James Wan (2016)

8. The Conjuring 2

With "Furious 7" now on his resume, James Wan was officially a member of the Billion Dollar Club. He had started out making low budget horror flicks, transferred to slightly classier and more expensive horror flicks, and was now directing elaborate action blockbusters. Wan claimed he was offered "life-altering money" to return to the "Fast and Furious" franchise and make its eighth installment. Say what you will about Wan and the series of dubious merit he's unleashed on the world, at least he knows which side of his bread is buttered. The man remains loyal to the horror genre. Warner Brothers and New Line Cinema knew "The Conjuring" had franchise potential from the beginning, bringing the Hayes back to start work on a sequel script based on the first's positive test screenings and fast-tracking the "Annabelle" spin-off. Wan, meanwhile, was eager to return to the Warren case files, expressing continued enthusiasm for the concept and contributing to the sequel's script. Reported to have the subtitle "The Enfield Poltergeist" during production, the film would drop in June of 2016 in most territories as simply "The Conjuring 2." 

The Enfield poltergeist is a case that is probably familiar to believers and skeptics of the paranormal. In the Brimsdown neighborhood of the Enfield region of London, resides a humble council house at 284 Green Street. In 1977, single mother Peggy Hodgson lived there with her two daughters, thirteen year old Margaret and eleven year old Janet. The family reported strange noises, furniture moving, and other poltergeist activity. Apparently, the paranormal events were loud enough that the neighbors noticed the strange noises. The incidents become so bad that they called the police, who reportedly witnessed a chair "wobble and slide" across a room without explanation. Maurice Grosse and Guy Lyon Playfair, of the Society for Psychical Research, began to seriously investigate the case. They supposedly saw objects mysteriously thrown across rooms, photographed the girls levitating off their beds, and claimed that Janet could channel the gruff-voiced spirit of an old man named Bill. 

The reports received considerable media attention, especially those photos of the girls levitating... Which more than a few people noticed seemed to simply depict Janet jumping into the air. Janet was also caught thumping a broom against the ceiling, the source of the mysterious noises. Several experts noted that the "channeling" she did was simple ventriloquism. The girls would admit to pranking Grosse and Playfair but the researchers continued to claim the haunting was genuine. It got to the point that other SPR members became dismayed at how easily duped Grosse and Playfair had been. Despite all of that, some continue to point to the Enfield haunting as a legitimate example of supernatural evidence caught on film. As for the involvement of Ed and Lorraine Warren, they showed up for a few days and instructed the investigators to sell the book and movie rights. That, as far as the facts go, was that.  

Not that the facts matter much at all when it comes to "The Conjuring" films. The sequel emphasizes this by opening with Lorraine and Ed doing a séance at the Amityville horror house in 1976, a sequence of questionable taste that recreates the real murders that happened there. The sequel goes off on its own flight of fancy after that: Lorraine has a vision of a demonic nun that climaxes with Ed dying. She becomes concerned that, if they continue their investigation into the paranormal, it will end with her husband's death. Meanwhile, across the ocean, strange events are happening in Enfield, London. The four children of Patty Hodgeson are experiencing frightening visions. The supernatural activity seems to revolve around eleven year old Janet. She sleepwalks, teleports around the house, is at the center of telekinetic episodes, and becomes possessed by the hostile spirits that live there. Local investigators and the media circle around the family, with some wondering if the incident is a hoax. Ed and Lorraine are reluctantly drawn into seeing for themselves. They soon realize that the Enfield haunting is real and that it is connected to Lorraine's troubling reoccurring dreams.

"The Conjuring 2" essentially seeks to repeat the structure of the first film. The story is split in two for much of its runtime. We follow the Warrens as they measure the cost of their supernatural exploits and the love they feel for each other. Meanwhile, most of the meat of the story occurs around a simple family being increasingly vexed by otherworldly horrors until they can take it no more and call in the Warrens for help. Being a sequel, "Conjuring 2" hopes to do the Same Thing But Bigger. Now the paranormal terror the victimized family deals with is far more elaborate, with seemingly multiple threats emerging in the house. More time is spent with the Warrens, Lorraine's visions leading to yet more chances for shrieking sequences of horror. In general, the sequel centers the married demonologists much more in the plot while more-or-less following an extremely similar set-up to the first. Normal family starts dealing with ghost shit and the Warrens ride in to save the day. 

By this point in his career, James Wan was no longer just the "Saw"/"Insidious" guy. With "Furious 7" under his belt, he had proven himself as an expert of bombast and elaborate action scenes. The director definitely brought some of that energy back to the "Conjuring"-verse with him. From its opening minutes, "The Conjuring 2" is already laying on the CGI excess. Lorraine's first vision features loudly edited shots of Ronnie DeFeo murdering his family, CGI debris flying everywhere, and ends with a big digital spike slamming through Ed's chest. The sequel doesn't crank back on the throttle much after that. "The Conjuring 2" is one overdone sequence of computer-assisted fright after another. A friendly pet dog transforms into a twitchy demon in a dapper suit. The angry face of an evil old man leaps from the darkness, shrieking at the girl. The iron gate of a fireplace is flung across the room, huge cracks appear in the ceiling, and people are dragged screaming from their beds. By the time a lightning bolt tears through the heavens and splits a tree on the Hodgeson's lawn in half, the sequel has more than committed itself to being an unending spectacle of terror. 

Is it scary? Not at all. It is definitely extremely loud. Any chance for subtly goes out the window when the stuttering Hodgeson son – an invention of the film – is screamed at by a demonic voice from his play tent. The volume remains high throughout. The sequel is fond of thrusting its horrors directly at the viewer, after the kind of extended build-up that is supposed to create suspense. Instead, watching demon fingers curl around a painting or Ed stumble around the house with blurred vision only makes us anticipate the loudness of the incoming jump-scare. The Crooked Man creaking and twitching down a hallway or the evil nun running towards Lorraine is accompanied by considerable screaming and bellowing. This is a belligerent type of horror movie, that unceasingly hits the viewer over the head with scary faces and loud shrieks in hopes of dulling all our senses. Such an approach can work with an over-the-top action movie but is less effective when applied to a horror film. What is frustrating about this is that James Wan should know better. The first "Conjuring" began with disquieting noises in the night, the sleepwalking daughter bumping her head on a cabinet. It created that sense of normalcy that is so important to horror working. By going for the loud jolts right from the get-go, "The Conjuring 2" can't cook up the same sense of tension. 

While the first "Conjuring" managed to recreate the look and pacing of a seventies spook show, at first anyway, the sequel makes no such attempt. Wan teams here for the first time with Don Burgess, Robert Zemeckis' semi-regular cinematographer since "Forest Gump." Burgess also worked on "Spider-Man," "Terminator 3," and "Enchanted." In other words, he guarantees that "The Conjuring 2" looks smooth and modern. The film is full of multiple long tracking shots, following the characters as they go from room to room, often via flashy camera movements. The integration of CGI into such frames is far from seamless and often draws attention to itself. "The Conjuring 2" has an often overcast color palette, primarily composed of gloomy greys, cold blues, and murky blacks. It does not look like 1977. Aside from some standard set-dressing – a David Soul poster on the girl's bedroom wall, Ed's sideburns, the stereotypical montage set to the Clash's "London Calling" – little attempt is made to capture the look and feel of the late seventies. 

The result is a sequel that uniformly lacks the warmth of the original. The threatened family at the center of "The Conjuring 2" is a lot smaller than that in the first. We have an overworked single mom, shy little Janet, bolder Margaret, and stuttering little Bobby. However, we never get a sense of place and familiarity here as we did in the Perron home. Less attempt is made to flesh out the siblings' relationship or the mom's bond with her kids. The Hodgesons seem less like a family and more like a collection of plot device. The emotional core of the story rests solely with the Warrens this time. This is why the only time the sequel grabs a bit of the chummy atmosphere of the first is when Ed picks up a guitar and warbles off an Elvis song for the Hodgeson kids. We needed more moments like that, when we are simply living with these characters and getting to know them, in-between all the belligerent attempts at scares. Considering "The Conjuring 2" runs two hours and thirteen minutes, you'd think it would have time for more moments such as these, in order to make us care about these characters more. 

The film is certainly trying to get us to care. The script – from the Hayes twins, Wan, and "Orphan's" David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick – tries to build up a theme about family and love. All throughout, Lorraine is driven by her love for Ed, fearful that his life is in danger. There are key scenes where both of the Warrens have a talk with Janet, informing her of how their connection with each other keeps them going in such a scary world. However, this is paired with two other awkward decisions. First off, the longer "The Conjuring 2" goes on, the more stuck it becomes on the "rules" of its supernatural threat. The finale is devoted to Lorraine trying to find the name of the demon behind the haunting, so that she can vanquish it. This sort of video game-style story writing, in which a MacGuffin must be seized to stop the bad guy, feels totally at odds with the emotional reality of the story. It's an imposition on the plot, that moves our concern from Ed's life being in danger to some made-up bullshit about how to exorcise demons. It also sticks Vera Farmiga, already at the center of the sequel's silliest story beats, with all the most awkward, mechanical dialogue. This leads to Farmiga giving a largely stiff performance.

Secondly, "The Conjuring 2" isn't content to merely be about how the people we love keep us going and how they must be protected. The sequel explicitly connects the love of family with religious faith. The investigators who work with the Warrens define their work as looking for something greater. The Warrens have found that higher calling: It is God, specifically the one of the Catholic Church. Both Ed and Lorraine carry crucifixes with them as powerful totems against the demonic forces. They invoke God's name when casting out demons. The final boss takes the form of an evil nun, Lorraine informs us, to "mock her faith." If this is starting to seem less like mainstream Christianity and more like some weird fusion of conservative Catholicism and mysticism, that's exactly what it is. I think "The Conjuring 2" hopes to address the criticism that these movies are ore full-of-shit than the con artists that inspired them. There's plenty of evidence, after all, that the Enfield poltergeist was a hoax and the Amityville haunting was definitively a hoax. These truths are loosely written into the sequel... As events compelled to happen by demons to shake our faith. The skeptics in the film are all depicted as small-minded nitpickers, out to keep the Warrens from saving us from the demons. "The Conjuring 2" fully adopts Lorraine Warren's worldview that her Catholic faith and belief in the supernatural are inseparable and that neither should be questioned. 

One could almost excuse a big budget studio movie assuming this frankly psychotic world view. This was the third entry in the ever-expanding "Conjuring"-verse, after all. The reason so much screen time is given over to the Nun and the Crooked Man manifestations of the central demon is because New Line Cinema was already priming these two ghosts for their own spin-offs. They were presumably introduced into the sequel to be the next Annabelles, to keep the cinematic universe growing. That means "The Conjuring 2" is basically the horror version of "Iron Man 2," detached from our world and governed by its own goofball rules and laws. The Nun's appearance was even the result of a Marvel-style reshoot, replacing a generic demon that presumably didn't have much commercial prospects as a breakout solo act. Comic book storytelling like this has as much to do with the real world as "Lord of the Rings'" Middle Earth does, right? 

Maybe but "The Conjuring 2" does itself no favors by nakedly drawing inspiration from "The Exorcist." Much like little Reagan McNeil, Janet Hodgeson seemingly unwillingly invites the demonic forces in by playing around with a home-made ouija board. Throughout the sequel, we are presented with images of a little girl, croaking in an evil voice, being possessed by a demon that twists her body and scars her skin. The first "The Conjuring" was clearly inspired by "The Amityville Horror," a crass piece of commercial filmmaking whose only valuable subtext was also about monetary concerns. It was easy to do better than that. "The Exorcist," meanwhile, is a classic that grapples with the weight of faith and actually asks questions about the role of good and evil in the world. "The Conjuring 2" has a thoroughly braindead moral – that demons are real and only God, via his proxies of the Catholic Church and the Warrens, can protect us – and sets itself for utter failure by openly imitating a film so much more nuanced and thoughtful like "The Exorcist."

But what do I know? "The Conjuring 2" would become a monster hit in the summer of 2016. The sequel would make slightly less domestically than the original but did gangbusters overseas. Earning over 300 million dollars, it would become the highest grossing horror movie of the year and was, by some calculations, the second highest grossing film in the genre for a while. In other words, Warner Brothers and New Line got the hit they wanted. They got a launching pad for more spin-offs. (Though that "Crooked Man" movie seems to have died on the vine.) Considering the sequel's box office success, clearly audiences were very satisfied with the bombastic approach to the haunting movie. "The Conjuring 2" is a disappointing follow-up to a decent original that doubles down on what annoyed me about the first one, while stripping away the elements that did work for me. I guess, however, in uncertain times such as these, the public cries out for morally sound heroes like Ed and Lorraine Warren. [Grade: C]