Following on from one of the best horror movies of recent years The Conjuring 2 revisits paranormal investigators Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga & Patrick Wilson) as they are investigating the Amityville house where Ronald DeFeo murdered his family, to establish if it was a genuine case of possession or not. During the course of this investigation Lorraine has a vision where she encounters demonic nun figure (Bonnie Aarons) and sees a vision of Ed being murdered before the connection is broken. Soon after Ed is working on a new painting and puts the image of the nun on canvas and this leads to Lorraine wanting to retire from their work but Ed believes they are doing Gods work and cannot give up.

They are contacted by the Catholic church with regard to a potential possession taking place in the UK where Janet Hodgson (Madison Wolfe) seems to be controlled by the spirit of an old man Bill Wilkins (Bob Adrian). When they travel to see the scene for themselves they, and some other investigators Maurice Grosse (Simon McBurney) and Anita Gregory (Franka Potente) try and contact the spirit of Bill before he destroys Janet and her family but all is not as it seems and the demonic nun also has a part to play as both Ed and Lorraine battle for their lives along with the Hodgsons.

I really liked the first movie as it gave us less of the jump scares which populate most horror movies these days and places focus more on the psychological side of horror which is always a good thing. Thankfully this movie goes the same way, there are no spectacular death scenes, theres very little blood and yet the terror feels more magnified. Although there are a few more jump scares than the original, most of which are shown in the trailer, there is more than enough here to scare particularly since it is all based around a true story and there are some great scenes which are reminiscent of the classic horror movies of the 70’s and early 80’s. When you have a horror film where what is happening in the background or even off screen can be key you are onto a winner as it builds the tension superbly.

Once again both Farmiga and Wilson do an excellent job as the investigators and in yet another great performance by a young actress Wolfe is wholly believable as the tormented and possessed girl who shows a huge range of emotions as she swings from terrified girl to evil spirit and back again and the demonic nun is something straight out of your nightmares, there is a brilliant scene based around the above mentioned painting which I guarantee will have you on the edge of your seat.

It’s not a perfect movie but any means, the kids are a little too clean cut for a working class family in 1970 UK and the lack of character building for the rest of the family means that your are less invested in the family unit than you were in the first movie also, the lack of interest by the police considering the potential danger to the family is a bit of a stretch but these are minor quibbles and director James Wan once again really creates an eerie atmosphere through his use of foreboding settings coupled with some terrific camera work and he has solidified himself at the top levels of the horror genre with another hit after his recent work on Insidious and Saw before that. In conjunction with a great script from the Hayes brothers Chad & Carey, who have worked very closely with the Warrens and apparently have their approval to continue to bring their stories to the big screen, they have created a classic horror movie for the modern era. I’ve seen many horrors over the years and I don’t scare easily, but this was one of the few that I’ve seen in the past few years which has stuck in my mind long after the movie ended.

DJ Speaks Rating: 7.5 Out Of 10

Greta (Lauren Cohen) arrives in the UK to take a job as a nanny to the Heelshires son Brahms however Brahms is not a child but is a doll with a realistic porcelain face. At first she believes this to be a joke however it is soon apparent that it is all too real and before the Heelshires leave for their holiday they supply Great a list of rules which must be followed without failure.

Not long after the Heelshires have left and Greta has ignored the supplied rules strange things begin to occur around the creepy old house and when Great confides in the grocery delivery man Malcolm (Rupert Evans) who tells her the back story about the human Brahms and his subsequent death so Great believes that the doll is possessed by the spirit of Brahms and begins to treat the doll as initially instructed but where her ex-boyfriend Cole (Ben Robson) shows up and starts to react angrily towards the door going so far as to smashing it the real secret behind Brahms and the house reveals itself.

This is yet another of the creepy doll movies which have become more popular as movie themes but unfortunately this is just as bad, there’s no reasoning behind how the Heelshires bring a woman from the USA to the UK since they don’t seem to have any Internet, there’s no explanation as to who Rupert is any why the Heelshires seem to trust him, there’s the usual moments of jump scares which occur inside a dream which has been done to death at this point. The real star of the movie is the house which always gives a sense of foreboding towards something bad happening, which say a lot for the script and while the twist is at least a little different by that point I didn’t care and of course the ambiguous ending leaves it open for a sequel which I can only hope never sees the light of day.

Jessie Hobson (Kate Bosworth) and her husband Mark (Thomas Jane) adopt a new foster child, Cody (Jacob Tremblay) as part of their attempts to get their life back on track after their own son has died.

However, Cody is a child with a troubled past who was abandoned by his previously family and they soon realise that Cody’s reluctance to sleep is linked to an issue he has where whatever he dreams manifests itself in reality, but on the flip side his nightmares also appear and one repeat appearance is by a creature he calls ‘The Canker Man’. These nightmares are far more are deadly so Jessie and Mark begin to understand why Cody was abandoned and must figure out what to do to stop this process before they are killed.

There are some very well acted scenes between Jane and Tremblay which feel full of emotion and their developing relationship is the heart of the movie while Bosworth is still more focused on Cody being the replacement for her dead son as opposed to building a new bond and, maybe it was just me, but I found myself disliking her character up until the latter stages when she begins to show some redeeming features. Tremblay in general is once again superb and is completely believable as the troubled child. Coming off his performance in Room he is without doubt a very talented young actor.

Director Mike Flanagan has also recently given us the underrated Hush and while this is not as good as that film you can see plenty of similarities in the camerawork and scene setting but some of the plot is a little strange, such as, why would an agency place a child with a family who are still struggling to deal with the death of their own child, why doesn’t either parent want to report the fact that Cody is doing his best to stay awake every night and after a certain incident that occurs in the school they are so oblivious to the cause of the issue it’s baffling.

While the acting was fine, the concept was good and the ending tried to do something a little different for which it must be given credit, it just failed to raise itself to any level of greatness and can be best described as a good film elevated by some very good acting but there were times that the film drifted back to the old tropes of the horror genre which felt a bit unnecessary. While I would recommend checking it out, especially if you are a fan of the genre, it’s nothing that hasn’t been done before so don’t expect anything outstanding.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5.5 Out Of 10

A sequel to the 2010, hugely successful, Alice in Wonderland movie which somehow managed to bring in over $1 billion worldwide at the box office. This time we find Alice (Mia Wasikowska) on the high seas as captain of her own ship, taking on the elements and pirates just to show that she is no ordinary girl (or woman as she must be now) however when she returns home she finds that, her former beau Hamish Ascot (Leo Bill), has taken over his father’s company and plans to have Alice sell him her father’s ship in exchange for the return of the deeds to her family home. After an argument with her mother over this situation she runs off (again) and follows a butterfly, who she believes to be Absolem from her first adventure, through a magical mirror which brings her back to Wonderland although this time the plot of the book is discarded for a different theme.

All the characters are back again however this time she finds that The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp) is acting very unusual and his failing health is based on the fact that he now believes that his family, that he initially believed were dead, are still alive so the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) suggests that Alice speaks with Time (Sacha Baron Cohen) to see if he can help in finding out how this occurred but Time is unwilling to assist and advises her that you cannot change the past however Alice steals an instrument called the Chronosphere which allows her to travel back in time to find out what happened to the Hatters family. From that point it becomes a chase across tihe ages as Alice travels back and forward between the real world and Wonderland trying to change the past but inevitably only changing things for the worse which culminates in the Chronosphere falling into the hands of the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) who decides to use the instrument to rule all of time.

While Tim Burton managed to create a sense of fantasy around the characters in the first movie this time the characters suffer from a lack of use. It’s all about Alice and unfortunately Wasikowska just doesn’t feel like she is the center point of the movie and is often overshadowed by other characters. Also her portrayal of the grown up Alice still feels childlike. Depp has very litter to do, Bonham Carter is good when on screen but the time is limited and ditto for Hathaway. The rest of the cast are only background noise and the one person who is given any type of center stage is Cohen’s Time character who does a good job as the master of the clock but overall they are battling against a poor script and a seeming lack of vision to bring the same magic to the screen that the first movie had. While not a bad movie it’s not a particular good movie either although I’m sure it will still make a fortune at the box office.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4.5 Out Of 10

I had heard some good things about this movie and I expected a comedic romp starring the aforementioned feline getting into various scrapes, instead this felt like a sketch from stars Kay & Peele which was stretching into movie length with the cat only forming a small sub plot to the film.

Keanu is an adorable kitten, even for a dog person like myself, and once he ends up on the doorstep of Rell (Jordan Peele) who has just been dumped by his girlfriend it’s love at first sight however unknown to Rell, Keanu already has owners in the form of the Allentown Boys (also played by Kay & Peele) who have recently liberated him from a local Mexican cartel boss while carrying out a hit so they want him back. While Rell is on a night out with his cousin Clarence (Key) the house is ransacked and Keanu is missing. The trail leads to local gangster Cheddar (Method Man) who is now in possession of Keanu and in order to get Keanu back Clarence and Rell must adapt new personalities in the form of gang members ‘Tectonic’ and ‘Shark Tank’. Of course it wouldn’t be a movie if it went according to plan so we have to follow the stars as their deception takes them further and further into the underbelly of the city as lie follows more elaborate lie.

Yes, there are some humerous pop culture references and a very funny cameo from Anna Faris but the real laughs are as few and far between as the cat appearances so this feels slightly like false advertising, certainly like a wasted opportunity and at 98 minutes way too long to keep a weak plot interesting as it’s essentially a one joke movie.

DJ Speaks Rating: 4.5 Out Of 10