It was worth risking sleepless nights to take on the most-hyped horror film of the summer.

What’s It About? Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren travel to Enfield, England, to help a working-class mother whose daughter is experiencing demonic possession.

STRAIGHT UP: A thinking man’s horror film. 4/5

What I Liked

Memorable monsters – A horror movie is often only as good as its monsters, and The Conjuring 2 doesn’t disappoint. Both the Demon Nun and the enigmatic Crooked Man are strikingly creepy, although I would’ve liked to see more of both.

Mounting dread – Particularly in the first half, the film is especially good at creating an atmosphere of tension and terror without tipping its hand too much. This is accomplished with excellent sound design and skillful shots that shape and tease the viewer’s fears and expectations. If that explanation is unclear, watch for the scene where Lorraine is visited by a specter in her study, or the one where Ed interviews the Enfield spirit, and you’ll see what I mean.

Horror with a heart – I appreciated this film’s efforts to add some humor and characterization to the narrative, in order to make the cast feel like more than just hapless demon fodder. From Peggy’s hassled accounts of the haunting, to Ed joking about a cumbersome camera’s ease of use, to the whole family singing Elvis Presley tunes to raise morale – it sounds cheesy, but it adds emotional stakes and keeps the viewer rooting for the good guys instead of the monster.

Catharsis – No matter how atmospheric a horror movie is, I think it’s important to finish things up with an explosive confrontation between the heroes and the demons. The Conjuring 2 delivers big-time here, with a thrilling and perilous final sequence.

Traditional scares – Some will say that this film’s by-the-book approach to horror is a weakness, but I disagree. General audiences disappointed with the more auteur stylings of The Witch will probably find more to like here.

What I Disliked

A little overstuffed – At 133 minutes, The Conjuring 2 is awfully long for its genre. I can think of a few scenes that could’ve been cut in order to up the pace and keep things more consistently scary – in particular, the ones where the Warrens and other investigators argue about the Enfield hauntings being a possible hoax don’t seem to serve the film well.

Still not the scariest – I’m still pretty much a wimp when it comes to scary movies, and I watched most of this one between the gaps of my fingers. But after all the build-up, I’m disappointed that I still didn’t experience anything to compare to the oppressive dread I felt all through It Follows…

CLOSING THOUGHT: Watching The Conjuring 2 and overhearing the conversations afterward (reactions in my theater were mixed) got me thinking about how hard it must be to make a horror movie. If there are too many jump scares, everyone calls it a cheap trick, but if there’s too much build-up, everyone says they saw it coming. Couple that with the fact that every person experiences fear differently, and the whole thing starts to feel impossible. With that in mind, I suspect that many people will disagree with me about how scary – and by extension, how good – The Conjuring 2 really is. However, I do think that this film’s rock-solid narrative and strong technical elements make it the rare horror film that works as a compelling story even when it’s not terrifying the audience, and in that respect, I can’t imagine how it could be much better.