In this day and age, it's no secret that horror films aren't particularly considered "well-constructed movies". In so many modern horrors, the pure aim has been to make audiences jump or make them feel nauseous. The Conjuring hasn't been tarnished with those cheap techniques and that's what makes it the only stand-out scary for some time!
It's no surprise that it spawns from director James Wan, who helped bring us Saw and Insidious, films which did start to resonate with audiences upon their release. Is Wan slowly becoming the new master of all things sinister? He seems to be trying to reinvent the genre, attempting to make it more of a serious avenue for films to go down rather than a tainted one.
Focused on the Perron family, who (same old, same old) move to a creaky old house where things go a little more bump in the night. Before long, the spirits troubling them start to become more and more pesky and they sought after publicly known "demonologist" and medium duo, the Warrens (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson). Worried that their new clients may be infested by a goggle of hateful ghosts, the twosome move in to the Perron's home to retrieve freaky footage to convince the Vatican to warrant an exorcism. Intense, right?
It sounds pretty farfetched when condensed into a few sentences like that, but The Conjuring really is, better than most possession stories horror junkies have seen before.
Something that was very intriguing about the subject of this film, is that it based on real-life paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. Now, Paranormal Activity was supposedly based on a real story but try and research any of the characters and you end up with a bunch of speculation message boards, oppositely, the Warrens were very real. The pair are recognised as being the first investigators involved in the Amityville Horror case in Long Island way back in 1975, (listen out for the reference towards the end of this film) .
Vera Farmiga's performance is particularly notable. Actually providing kooky, clairvoyant Lorraine with any kind of gravitas would seem difficult but she seems to do it with ease. The Up In The Air actress has been getting a lot of recognition lately after her Emmy nomination for her portrayal as Norma Bates in Bates Motel and this part fuels the notion that it is well deserved. Wilson's Ed is a little more believable and he does well as not only a support for Farmiga's character but seemingly, Farmiga herself.
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| Patrick Wilson is kept on his toes throughout |
Many avid horror movie-goers were scoffing at the idea that this was rated a 15 here in the UK, but it's this sense that the story was more important than the outright scares that makes The Conjuring have much more calibre in the cinema stakes. Gore and blood or jumpy moments weren't just thrown in for the sake of it, nor did any of those scenes that they did include come at the price of a well told storyline.
The parts that are scary are truly haunting in this film however. Some of the imagery is so beautifully creepy and in a genre so saturated with possession plots and ghosts everything seems innovative and original. Set in the 70's against a backdrop of southern America, the costuming and sets alone make for interesting visuals themselves. You could say it is almost an understated horror spectacular. The spooky moments are somewhat predictable, but they'll still have you hiding behind your hand when the suspense is built by Wan's lingering camera shots. The lack of score in these moments is unusual for a horror but it adds reality to the piece and makes the viewer really feel as if they are there too. It has a sense of an old school horror film about the whole picture. Maybe not so far back as Psycho, but certainly much more thought-out and more importantly well-made as these mockumentary horrors taking over these days.
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