While the continued ghostbusting adventures of Ed and Lorraine Warren does not raise pulses as consistently, The Conjuring 2 never the less delivers on its promise as an old school horror sure to inspire nightmares aplenty.

Ahhhh, the horror movie sequel. Rare has its kind delivered upon the expectations of the first. Hell, rare has the same director decided to come back and continue with his/her ghost story!

James Wan is an exception to that unwritten rule. With two highly successful horror franchises already underneath his belt (Saw, Insidious), Wan now focuses on his third with The Conjuring 2, or unofficially known as “The Chronicles of Paranormal Investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren” (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga).

The Conjuring 2 opens (surprisingly, brilliantly) on the case that made then Warrens world famous: the Amityville Horror. It is there a frightening experience forces the loving Catholic paranormal investigators to close shop… until another legendary haunting comes calling all the way from merry ol’ England in the form of the Enfield Poltergeist, where a not so friendly spectre terrorises the family of single mother Peggy Hodgson (Frances O’Connor, bring on the shrill Bri’ish accent), with tis sight especially set on buck-toothed 11 year old Janet (newcomer Madison Wolfe, very impressive).

Wan continues to live up to his reputation as the best mainstream horror filmmaker working today. Much like a great rock guitarist, the man simply knows his instrument, especially in those incredibly tense moments when a pitch perfect sustained note holds attention… until the slam of a power-chord-jump-scare rattles all in a display of masterful puppeteering.

Yet just like AC/DC switching to a pop ballad, Wan loses his way when The Conjuring 2 reverts to sappy sentimentality. Sure, having the likes of Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as your leads allows some dramatic juice to be injected into the creepy proceedings (unlike the wooden clogs that starred in prequel Annabelle), but the segues into the sappy do not work, with one particularly excruciating scene of Wilson crooning to an Elvis Presley classic a misplaced and humiliating horror in its own right.

Never the less, The Conjuring 2 is effectively creepy during the moments that matter. While it takes its “based on a true story” premise to extremes, it does so with the purest of intentions: to scare the living hell out of its audience. Once again, Wan succeeds in doing just that.