Insidious Chapter 2 Official Trailer #1 (2013)

[UPDATE: Watch the Insidious 2 Trailer HERE!]

After months of wondering how the entire Lambert family managed to make it to a sequel, Insidious Chapter 2 plot details finally surfaced by way of a set visit, and later today you’ll get the chance to see them play out when the film’s new trailer arrives on iTunes. However, we got an early look at thetrailer at a special screening in New York City, so if you just can’t wait, we’ve got the rundown. For those who missed out on round one, clearly SPOILERS lay ahead.

For those in need of a refresher before delving into the new material, Insidious honed in on Renai and Josh Lambert (Rose Byrne and Patrick Wilson), their two young sons and infant baby girl. Shortly after moving into a new home, their eldest, Dalton (Iron Man 3's Ty Simpkins), goes exploring and winds up falling off a ladder. Despite being a little shaken, he’s okay. However, when Josh goes to wake him up the next morning, Dalton is entirely unresponsive. It’s clear that he’s fallen into a coma, but the doctors can’t come up with a reason why and opt to send him home. Soon thereafter strange things start to happen in the Lambert home - strange things that Renai and Josh eventually learn are connected to Dalton’s condition.

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Warning: MAJOR Spoilers for Insidious 1 ahead!

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Old Woman of Insidious

Now for the details that’ll lead us into the Insidious 2 trailer. In the tail end of the first film, we meet Elise (Lin Shaye) and her team of paranormal activity investigators, Tucker and Specs (Angus Sampson and Leigh Whannell), who come to the conclusion that Dalton has the ability to astral project while he’s sleeping, and is currently in the coma because while doing so, he went too far and is now lost in “The Further.” The only way to bring him back is for someone to go in and get him, and when it’s revealed that Dalton inherited the ability from Josh, Josh winds up the obvious candidate. The venture is seemingly successful - until it’s revealed that Josh doesn’t return from The Further as Josh, but rather as the creepy old woman who stalked him while he astral projected as a young boy.

The Lamberts in Insidious 2

Despite the first film’s bleak conclusion, the trailer for Insidious 2 kicks off by depicting the Lamberts as one big happy family again. Josh announces that the past is in the past and that now they’re safe, but soon an eerie lullaby kicks in, inanimate objects move, and the ghosts arrive. To the tune of a warped “Row, Row Row Your Boat” we get a string of clips that solidify that the evil from The Further is back - including some clips of the new psychic character played by Steve Coulter (Banshee), communicating with the ghosts and demons by asking them questions and then rolling a set of dice to reveal their answers. Then “Tip Toe Through the Tulips” kicks in and the piece rolls into a montage of madness during which Josh suggests the paranormal entities followed him back when he saved Dalton. Before wrapping up, the trailer delivers one last eerie thrill, showing Josh face to face with a frail figure in the further mumbling, “He's got your baby,” over and over again.

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NEXT PAGE: Q&A With  Director James Wan...

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James Wan on the Set of Insidious

After the trailer our New York screening tapped into the Los Angeles Q&A session with James Wan (Saw) at the Linda Vista Hospital, one of the sets for the film. The discussion was loaded with information regarding Wan’s prowess within the genre and his excitement for this project in particular, but the first thing that would stand out to any “Insidious” fan is when Wan revealed:

“Whereas the first movie has a twist on the classic haunted house genre, the second one is a slightly different movie, and so it has a twist on a different sub-genre. It’s more in the vein of like a domestic thriller, but with a pervasive supernatural undertone, which is kind of what The Shining is in some ways.”

And the domestic thriller sub-genre isn’t the only new territory Insidious 2 treads into. Wan even noted, “Insidious 2 deals a little bit with elements of time traveling.” Sadly Wan was cut short before delving deeper, but later on he did reference a section of the film that takes place in 1986 with a young Josh (Garrett Ryan), Lorraine (Jocelin Donahue of The House of the Devil), and Elise (Lindsay Seim), so the two are likely connected.

Pulling back from Insidious 2 and jumping into his personal style in general, Wan noted something that somewhat hints at why his horror films are more effective than others:

“For me, you know, it’s not necessarily seeing the scariest monster in the room that makes it scary. It’s a character waking up in the middle of the night and he or she thinks there’s someone standing by the foot of their bed watching them sleep.”

Wan even goes as far to deliberately terrify himself to ensure a scare will have the same effect on an audience:

“When I was designing some of the scares for Insidious and my previous scary movie that I shot, one of the things I would do is literally walk through my house late at night with all the lights out and think up these really trippy, creepy scenarios and if I get really creeped out then I know it’s working.”

Insidious 2 sequel
Joseph Bishara as Demon, and Patrick Wilson as Josh in INSIDIOUS. Courtesy of FilmDistrict.tif

We’ll have to wait until The Conjuring arrives on July 19th and Insidious 2 on September 13th to see if Wan's "creepy" technique results in two good films - but even if things do continue to pan out in his favor, it could be a while before another James Wan horror movie hits the market. Wan will be switching gears (pun), jumping into the director's chair of Fast and Furious 7. One audience member asked Wan what kind of film he’d make with an unlimited budget, and even though F&F7 would be the realistic and immediate answer, Wan touched on two other types of movies that pique his interest:

“I’m a big comic book fan. I’d love to one day do a comic book film. I love that world. I have pet projects. I have pet projects for different reasons. I’m a romantic at heart and so a pet project of mine that I would love to one day do would be to do a big screen adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. That would be my thing.”

If Fast and Furious 7 is as big a hit as the latest installment, odds are Wan could wind up with the opportunity to pursue whatever his heart desires.

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Insidious Chapter 2 arrives in theaters on September 13, 2013. 

Follow Perri on Twitter @PNemiroff.