Huge jump scares, huge 1970s sideburns and huge posters of Starsky and Hutch feature in James Wan’s very moderate scary-movie version of a real-life news story from Britain about a reported supernatural phenomenon. In the summer of 1977, the terrified Hodgson family in Enfield, north London, came to believe their house was possessed. Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren were called in: the couple who had been associated with the legendary Amityville case in the US.

    As with the first Conjuring film, Lorraine and Ed are played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson. While Lorraine panics over private visions of a demon that looks like Marilyn Manson in a nun’s wimple, kindly ghostbuster Ed soothes the kids by crooning an Elvis number to his own acoustic guitar – like the nun in Airplane! Despite its frowningly serious inclusion of a meanie sceptic, played by Franka Potente, The Conjuring 2 fails to address the obvious issue to be raised by any sceptic: that pop culture may have played a part in the group subconscious. It suffers from the EastEnders paradox; just as characters on that programme can’t talk about what’s happening on EastEnders, so it never occurs to the poor souls here to say: “These real events are horribly similar to a recently released and sensationally popular movie called The Exorcist.” You’ll jump a few times in this film – it’s impossible not to, given the deafening digital stabs of sound – but this just rehashes a clutch of cliches, including a borrowing from The Babadook.

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