James Wan’s horror movies are all very similar but I could easily watch a dozen more. Wan takes the middle road with this genre. To one side is Tobe ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ Hooper of the ‘blood and guts everywhere’ school. To the other is Val ‘Cat People’ Lewton, who believed suggesting was always better than showing (so that sometimes you weren’t even sure there was anything there at all). James Wan resembles neither. He believes in showing us what’s scary, all right, and there are some truly creepy images in this one. But they’re creepy, not gross-out. Strange as it may seem for the director who got our attention with Saw, Wan keeps it classy.

This sequel sees the return of psychic and haunted house investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Wilson and Farmiga), now in the late 1970s, as they finish up documenting the Amityville murders and Lorraine is drawn into a horrifying vision which sets them off on another case based on a true story.

Well, sort of. I think we have to interpret “based on a true story” as “based on something that truly is a story”; and the story here is that of the Enfield poltergeist, which was a pretty big deal in its day.

The actual girl who was supposedly possessed by the Enfield poltergeist says the film takes some liberties with the facts – for instance, the Warrens really only investigated in their house for a day. But everything is so thoroughly well done that it seems churlish to raise this objection, let alone the point that the house wasn’t really haunted and her possession was faked.