Is Conjuring 2 really based on a true story?- Investigating the Enfield Poltergeist Case

Following the series of paranormal activities taking place as ghosts are conjuring themselves up in washroom mirrors and stealing dead bodies, we decided to look further into the origin of the story behind the movie and we came across the Enfield poltergeist case where a household complained of similar paranormal incidents as depicted in the movie. As reported by The Daily Mail-

““It started in a back bedroom, the chest of drawers moved, and you could hear shuffling,” recalled the real Janet Hodgson many years later in a Channel 4 Enfield Poltergeist documentary. Thinking that it was Janet and her siblings making the noise, she said that her mother told them to go to sleep. “We told her what was going on, and she came to see it for herself. She saw the chest of drawers moving. When she tried to push it back, she couldn’t.”-Daily Mail Online

The story involves a single mother and her four kids who experienced unusual in their house in London. There were incidences of drawers opening and closing on their own, play things being flung around or found displaced and even a case where one of the child was levitated into air by a “strong force”.

This has been highly debated by experts and they arrived to the conclusion that the child apparently jumped from her bed. The Inverse however says that the movie may not have been inspired by this incident judging by the trailer but the choice of characters specifically depicting the residents of the Enfield house in the movie says otherwise. The incidence of the drawers opening and closing was closely related to the scene where Janet encounters a demonic force as the crosses turn around.

However when the children’s mother, Peggy Hodgson was cross questioned and the occurrences were thoroughly examined, it was found that most of her claims of paranormal activities were false which she herself later confessed to as well according to the report by CSI (2012) which reports the unnatural displacement of objects as tricks played by children and explains that Guy Lyon Playfair (who investigated the incidents in the house with his colleague) didn’t find any paranormal activities after spending an entire night at the house and suspected Janet’s mischief judging by her energetic and mischievous disposition. Playfair noticed that Janet was almost always the epicentre of all the mischiefs but still continued his investigation until Janet and Peggy confessed to have pranked them. Even a magician came to the conclusion that the tricks were simply “children’s acts” but yet, that did not explain all the occurrences.

About the “levitation” of the real Janet, did we mention she was a pro athlete at school? Come on, how does your hands go up so accurately and how do you lift your legs up so high once you are being thrown?

Ya right.

We want to congratulate director James Wan for this amazing movie that has grossed a fortune world over playing with our mind and fear with stunning visual effects, storyline and non-conclusive claims of being based on a true story. We will stick to Daily Mail’s take on the Enfield case-“no explanation other than the paranormal has ever been convincingly put forward” – Brennan, 2011 (Daily Mail)