If you push the paranormal too far you get para-abnormal and that’s a mind field. At any moment credibility will explode, leaving a mess of story parts bleeding across your consciousness.
Chapter 2 blows up early, cutting short the life of the film. What remains is wreckage. And ghosts. A riot of them.
If you missed the delights of Insidious (Chapter 1), it will not be easy to understand what is going on.
Let’s say haunted house with all the trimmings, which includes a new concept of limbo.
When you die you hang about in the misty dark, bumping into other unquiet souls, except they appear to be flesh and blood.
Can this ... what? Well, there are no rules now. Anything goes. Even sense.
If a spirit enters the body of a living person it stops being dead.
Nice one? What about Heaven and Hell, the pearlies and all that?
Forget them. This is Reincar Nation, where dying is negotiable.
The scriptwriters keep shuffling time, only to confuse you more.
When a hideous ghoul punches Renai (Rose Byrne) in the face she goes down like a stunned pony. Poltergeists don’t indulge in GBH, do they?
As for Josh (Patrick Wilson) turning into Jack Nicholson in The Shining – except it’s not the live Josh, it’s the dead Josh, or vice-versa – you feel that para-abnormal has gone bonkers backwards and it’s time to switch on the lights and make a run for it.