Packed theater for The Conjuring 2 (2016) tonight. James Wan knows his audience. The theater my wife and I were in was filled to the gills with kids probably around 17-23 in age. There was dread so thick in the audience during particular scenes you could part it with your hands. Impressive the way Wan does that. I personally never felt payoffs were as successful necessarily as the build to them, but nonetheless those in attendance seemed to tense up during key moments. Like the tent in the hall which looks like a tipi and a fire engine toy.
A painted portrait of a demonic ghoul in the blasphemous guise of a nun with pallid featureless face and distinctively evil eyes, done by Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) from a dream perfectly resembling what his wife, Lorraine (Vera Farmiga), saw in the Amityville house during a session where she was hoping to sense a possible presence there. It hangs on Ed's wall in his home office, and Lorraine gets locked in it with the portrait... everyone in the theater knew the ghoul was in there just waiting for it to resurface. I was amused with how Wan toyed with the audience through the use of a bell near a home's doors, placed by them for the pet dog to signal his desire to leave for the outside. But Wan shows a lot. The portrait room scene has Wan showing Valik, the nun demon, moving to its painting through a shadow across the wall. Wan has the bell scene feature the figment of the dog turning into a spinning tune toy's Boogeyman. There's a fun jolt in the tent through the use of the tune toy and Boogeyman. There's a use of a denture and how it relates to a bite mark I found amusing.
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