The Conjuring 2 Review: 6 Ups And 2 Downs

3. No Jump Scare Fake-Outs

Modern horror is enamoured with jump scares. Why make the audience fearful of what's on screen when you can make them scared of being shocked? A good jump scare - see M. Night's latest or Lynch - can really help a film and make the audience more on edge, but more often than not it has the opposite effect; it acts as a release of all the built up tension, giving you a respite. Everybody jumps, laughs it off and the horror is reset.

A bigger problem on top of that is that a lot of movies go for fake-out jump scares - the hero walks around scared, tension mounts, then something jumps at the screen and there's a loud blare, except it's only a cat or some sh*t like that. You get all the tension-killing of a proper jump, but none of the scare.

Excitingly, The Conjuring 2 doesn't do this. There are jump scares and a lot of extended sequences that are built on your fear of something lurking in the background, but instead of tossing Whiskers at you, it just lets the scene play out. If there's no jump, there's no jump. And you're all the more on edge for the next night.