Review by Damon Rickard
Stars Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson & Lili Taylor
Written by Chad Hayes & Carey Hayes
Certification UK 15
Runtime 112 minutes
Directed by James Wan
Based
on the accounts of Ed and Lorraine Warren, two of the foremost
paranormal investigators of our time, comes the new film from James Wan
(Saw, Death Sentence, Insidious). This is not the first of the Warren's
tales to have been made into a feature film with The Amityville Horror
being the other well known haunting based on their accounts. People
have doubted both that and this, the case of the Perron's (Lili Taylor
and Ron Livingston star as Carolyn and Roger Perron) have any truth to
them. My thoughts on this are if the film is good does it matter? Most
films are based on works of fiction so why should the debate of this
being true or not have any impact on the quality of the film?
The
story starts with the Perron's moving into their new home, a farmhouse
in Rhode Island set in a beautifully idyllic location, unaware of the
history contained with the walls of the house. From there it doesn't
take long for things to start going bump in the night. It starts off
small, as most haunting films do, and gradually ups the anti with the
Perron children seemingly being targeted most.
With
the hauntings becoming more frequent and more physical, Carolyn
contacts the Warren's to help free them from whatever is terroising
them. But following an exorcism that went awry, Ed Warren is reluctant
to take the case on, especially as it was his wife that suffered and,
wanting to protect her from more serious consequences he turns it down.However, the Warren's finally succomb to the needs of this family
and, whilst expecting something mischievous, were not prepared for the
scale of the maleavolence that was residing inside the Perron's
property.
James Wan has given us a story
that doesn't shy from the fact it isn't original and, indeed, has been
done many times before. The difference here is how well he has
delivered it. Unlike films such as The Haunting in Connecticut, The
Possession and The Pact, in fact the list could go on, The Conjuring
delivers on intensity and on the scares front. The others are full of
cliched set pieces made by people who don't understand the genre and
what actually makes a film scary. Whereas James Wan has been cutting his
teeth on films that, whilst good, weren't quite there and you can sense
he has learnt what didn't work and put these learnings into practice
with, by far, his best film to date.
I'm a big
fan of ghost stories but too often they are underwhelming. So what is
that The Conjuring does that others havent? Well for starters it got
the very basics right with likeable characters which gives you someone
to care about in terms of their outcome. Even the peripheral characters
are decent. The screenplay fleshes them out, gives them individual
personalities and backgrounds. The importance of this shouldn't be
underestimated. Next they created a sense of dread and once they got you
hooked they didn't let you go. If you want an audience to be scared
then give them something to be scared about. Just slowly opening doors
and pulling back shower curtains doesn't cut it if you don't think
anything is going to happen to the protagonists (a massive failure of
The Haunting in Connecticut where it was just lots and lots of false
scares to the point they became boring). Wan creates an increased sense
of the evil in the house by upping the anti as the story progresses. A
pull of a leg here, a shadowy figure there, slowly getting more and
more intense and viloent. Oh and a creepy as fuck doll!!
The
film is also beautifully photographed with exquisit lighting and the
camera only letting you see what you need to and when you need to see
it. The almost haunting style of camerwork also gives the house itself a
personality, not quite as striking as something along the lines of the
Psycho house but none-the-less adding to the feel of the film. The
dialogue is rich and playful at times, knowing when to introduce a light
touch and when not to so as to avoid a poorly placed "joke" ruining a
cleverly devised piece of tension. All credit to Wan and Chad and Carey
Hayes for bringing all these elements together and ensuring they didn't
fall into the obvious traps in the name of commercial film making and
still delivering a film that will prove to be popular commercially.
Not
everyone is going to love this film, that never happens with anything,
but it will please more than it disappoints. And if you are easily
scared by horror films then approach this with caution. It's not often a
horror film grips me to the point of feeling "scared" but The Conjuring
did manage it and for that I say thank you. It is a feeling I don't
really get watching films since I was a child and one that I miss so I
am appreciative when that childhood horror film experience is brought
back into my life.
When I was seven a particular film gave me nightmares for some time. This is a film those nightmares are made of. Enjoy.