The Conjuring

       I had a love/hate relationship with The Conjuring before I even stepped foot into an over-packed, over-priced theater.  The first commercial I caught featured Annabelle the doll, a doll so terrifying I immediately covered my eyes and didn’t want to catch another commercial for whatever movie was being advertised.  However, after that, all the commercials I braved watching just didn’t capture my interest.  A levitating chair. Clapping hands.  And the whole “based on a true story” shtick.  How good could The Conjuring possibly be?  Thanks to my friends’ interest in seeing it, I was able to find out.

 

       The Conjuring is based on the real life case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the demonologist and clairvoyant husband and wife team that also investigated the well-publicized Amityville case of 1974.  “Based on a true story” means absolutely nothing to me anymore, but that’s neither here nor there.  For arguments sake, I’m focusing on the movie, and not on what may or may not have happened in reality.  The film focuses on the haunting surrounding the Perron family; husband Roger, wife Carolyn, and their five young daughters.  Haunted house movies are a dime a dozen, but thankfully, director James Wan broke the mold with The Conjuring, and delivered not only a movie worth seeing, but a story that followed us back to our own, presumably safe, homes. 

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       For once I don’t have anything negative to say in one of my reviews.  So, let’s focus on the good!  The movie started with Annabelle the doll, which is also another of Ed and Lorraine’s real life cases and something I happened to catch on an episode of Mystery at the Museum not that long ago.   Fortunately for viewers, Wan upped the sheer creepiness of the possessed doll, and I was happy to already be covering my eyes not even five minutes into the movie.  The scares, both psychological and “jump out of your seat and scream”, were then delivered at an even pace throughout the entire film, so that the viewer was always engaged in the story, questioning the truth behind the haunting and anticipating what would come next. 

 

       As anyone who has read one of my previous blogs would know, one of my biggest pet peeves regarding horror movies (or anything for that matter) is lack of character development.  As I mentioned in The Collection review, if we don’t care about the characters, why should we care what happens to them?  This was absolutely not the case when it came to both the Perron family and the Warrens in The Conjuring, which featured an absolutely stellar cast.   We first met the Warrens, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who seemed like a warm and loving couple extremely knowledgeable in their professions.  We were then introduced to Roger, played by Ron Livingston, and Carolyn, played by the phenomenal Lili Taylor. (Do yourself a favor and catch her in The Haunting if you haven’t yet seen it.)  Their relationship seemed equally warm and loving, made all the more so with the addition of their five daughters.  While the movie didn’t delve too much into their background – why they moved from New Jersey to Rhode Island for instance – they still weren’t portrayed as 2 dimensional, shallow characters unworthy of the audience’s concern.  The audience got the sense that the Perrons were your average American family; hard working father, doting mother, and rambunctious but otherwise well behaved children.  If such terrifying occurrences could happen to them, they could happen to anybody.  Including you.

 

       One of my biggest concerns regarding The Conjuring was if the overabundance of commercials would ruin the scariest moments of the movie, much as it did with Sinister.  Fortunately, other than with the clapping scene, this wasn’t the case.   The audience was treated to a film with non stop thrills; we were either experiencing horror or anticipating when and where the next scare would occur.  One of the best things about this movie is that it delivered both typical horror movie thrills; stopped clocks, creaky doors, ect.; and psychological ones; the “this could happen to me” mentality.    Other than a few “jump and scream” scenes, I was more prone to the psychological side of the horror, and will own up to covering my eyes and muttering things under my breath like “oh no” and “oh sh!t”, just in anticipation of something happening.

 

       It’s those scenes, and those subsequent reactions, that make a horror film, such as The Conjuring, so remarkable, and thus memorable.  Any screen play writer and director can make an audience jump.  But it takes truly great and original work to have a movie get inside your mind and under your skin.  Or wait; is that really a spirit initiating a possession?  If you develop sudden bruises overnight, take two Aspirin and don’t call me in the morning.