Movie Review: Insidious: Chapter 2

I didn't believe that they could have made a successful sequel out of Insidious, which the first installment I thought was more funny than scary, but Insidious: Chapter 2 was surprisingly good. I thought the story was more grounded, and I liked how they really toned down the scares and went for a more story based horror film - how James Wan seamlessly woven the intricate plot of this sequel to the original film was actually quite impressive. The pacing was perfect, the character development was palpable, the lighting was a little problematic, but I digress, and the performances from both Patrick Wilson and Rose Byrne was pretty strong. True, the film resorted to a couple of jump scares with little to no pay off, but I liked that towards the second half, it quickly progressed into a plot driven horror. Insidious: Chapter 2 wasn't scary or creepy enough to keep me up at night, but it was not as silly as the first one. Oh, and there's obviously a third chapter, and I hope this franchise will know when to stop for the sake of quality film production. 7.5