The first “Insidious” was a fun haunted house movie with an interesting mythology that left me wondering what was actually going on. The second one brings a lot of the same things to the table, but It didn’t quite live up to the solid scares and sense of mystery the first had.

The movie starts where the last film left off. The still haunted Lambert family has found yet another creepy house to live in and things still are pretty bananas. After Renai (Rose Byrne) gets slapped across the room by a ghost who looks like Marilyn Manson’s mom, she attempts to convince her husband Josh (Patrick Wilson) that something is still going on. Strangely, Patrick is set against making the terrifying daily experience of living with a ghost a big deal, so Renai and Josh’s mother Lorraine (Barbera Hershey) go behind his back to find out the truth of what’s happening in the house and why Josh is acting like a crazy person.

Overall, I think the film was a little bogged down by explanation. Part of why I liked the first movie was because it slowly revealed what was happening to the family rather than directly explain certain aspects like was done in “Insidious 2.” On the other side of this, they did connect the two movies together in a pretty creative way that I did appreciate. This is one sequel that demands you see the original to know half of what is happening. The second half of the film is much more interesting than the first, so the overdone exposition does end up having a satisfying finale.

As for scares, the film wasn’t quite as creepy as the first movie was. There are some solid jump scares thrown in, and the spirit world was still done well, but some of the ghosts in the film come off as almost cartoony. It depends on the viewer, but the theater I was in laughed at some of the moments between Renai and the ghostly woman haunting her family. The film falls victim to plenty of horror cliches (self-playing instruments, creaky doors, etc.), but it does bring a pretty original lore for why the ghosts exist that puts it above a lot of the generic ghost films found in the genre.

Being a horror movie, most of the other actors mainly needed to be scared and concerned, which they did well. Rose Byrne always looks worried to me, and in “Insidious 2,” she didn’t need to travel far from that line. Patrick Wilson’s performance was especially impressive as Josh Lambert, who delivered an honestly scary performance as a man rotting away both physically and mentally. He could go from all American dad to serial killer with the right lighting and expression. His scenes near the end of  the film are full of rage and intensity, and it works.

Overall, I give “Insidious 2” a 3/5. It was fun, but a little too exaggerated to be scary and not cheesy enough to be comparable to “Evil Dead 2,” even though “Insidious 2” did remind me of it a bit. One thing I wish they focused more on was the two paranormal researchers they hire that were in the first film. They were more interesting than the family themselves, and I would love to see a continuation of their adventures fighting ghosts and being generally interesting people. Other than that, the film was worth a watch but doesn’t compare to the originality and legitimate scares of its predecessor.

3/5