I have often wondered what part of the human brain enjoys
being scared. Such a mechanism must exist, as evidenced by all the teenagers
who always show up to screenings of horror movies, gasping and shrieking
throughout, proclaiming afterwards that they will never sleep again. I think it
has something to do with a cheap, carnival-esque thrill factor. Ghost movies
are like those old-fashioned haunted house attractions. You know what’s going
to happen and you know it’s all quite fake, but you jump anyway and laugh about
it afterwards. This is the kind of old-fashioned appeal James Wan’s new movie The Conjuring possesses. It concerns a
family who moves into a secluded house (of course), wherein also resides the
evil spirit of a former witch (of course). Only slightly strange things happen
at first. All the clocks stop at 3:07 AM and a young girl may or may not see
something or someone in the shadows behind her bedroom door. When things start
getting more violent, a demonologist (Yes, that is a thing.) husband wife team
played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga show up to work their magic.
I am glad James Wan has given up the guts and gore practices
of the Saw franchise he created, in
favor of more atmospheric work like this and his last movie Insidious. Like that flick, most of the
scares derive from everyday objects and locations. Creepy dolls are always good
for a shiver or two (see The Twilight
Zone) and mirrors are used very effectively here. That’s one thing that
always used to scare me when I was younger: the idea that something other than
myself would appear in the reflection. Wan directs with masterful suspense, at
least as far as “in the moment” scares are concerned. He makes up for the lack
of long-lasting scares by presenting what he has with the utmost sincerity. Any
movie containing an exorcism scene must inevitably be compared to that
masterpiece The Exorcist, but few
movies have the same kind of cold realism. However, I can’t help but scoff at The Conjuring’s insistence on being
based on fact. What specter would really spend all it’s time playing spooky
hide and seek games?
The film uses its location to great effect. It wouldn’t have
worked nearly as well if it took place in a modern, well-lit house with one
story and five rooms. With a movie like this, timing is everything. Anybody who’s
seen at least a couple haunted house movies pretty much knows what to expect,
and there are numerous unavoidable clues that these films provide for when
terrifying things will happen. Most of the frightening scenes in this movie use
these cues we’re all familiar with, but an effort is made to surprise whenever
possible. There are more cases than you might think in which ominous music is
followed by terribly drawn-out silences. These instances of nothing happening
when you know something eventually will are scarier than the actual outcome of
makeup-drenched creepies flying in your face.
The one thing thriller naysayers always complain about is
how stupid the characters are when faced with such horrible supernatural
occurrences. I must warn you there’s a lot of that in this movie. I know that
if an apparition manifested itself in front of me, displayed its slit wrists
and groaned, “Look what she made me do!”
I hope I would be bright enough not to
follow it around the corner. Nevertheless, it is a fact that if these horror
movie characters weren’t stupid, there would be no opportunity for scary things
to happen. It is also true that the viewers themselves were stupid enough to
walk into a movie that they knew full well would scare the willies out of them.
I confess that I did not find The
Conjuring all that frightening, but I can certainly understand why others
do. I appreciated its eeriness more than its alarming jolts, but they both have
a place in the film’s overall success. All I can add now is…
BOO!!!
7/10
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