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Amityville, Amityville Horror, Cinema, Conjuring, Demonology, Ed and Lorrain Warren, Ed Warren, Exorcist, Ghost, Harrisville, Harriville, Haunting, Horror, Horror Movies, James, James Wan, Lili Taylor, Long Island, Lorraine Warren, Movies, New York, Patrick Wilson, Perron, Perron Family, poltergeist, Rhode Island, Supernatural, The, The Conjuring, Vera Farmiga, Wan, Warren, Warren Family
The Conjuring (James Wan, 2013) Is a supernatural horror thriller. The movie follows Ed (Patrick Wilson), and Lorraine (Vera Farminga) Warren, as they come to the aid of the Perron family who is being tormented by a malicious supernatural entity that occupies the farmhouse they just moved into. Together the Warrens and the Perron family must overcome and free themselves from a vengeful spirit bent making their lives hell.
So, before I go on, I feel I must say that I am commenting on this film as a movie based on my own personal opinions. I’m not discussing the movie vs any source material, or movie vs actual event; I’ll leave that out for another discussion.
Going into this film I was pretty skeptical, I kept hearing how that this film was really scary, or that it was this generation’s Exorcist. So, after finally sitting down and watching this film I have to say the scariness of the film was over hyped in my opinion, and comparing it to the Exorcist is a stretch, while I can see it too an extent, I do not think it quite measures up. Now, on that note I am by no means saying that this is a bad movie, or that this movie is not scary. On the contrary I was quite entertained by the film, and the movie does get pretty chilling at times, nothing that kept me awake for several days but, still it had pretty frightening moments. To me the movie builds an atmosphere that becomes increasingly scary throughout the film, culminating into a fantastic climax. The film pulls you into this dark scary world, and the chills only get worse as the film goes on. I would say that the movie is much scarier than A Haunting in Connecticut, a film also based on an even the Warrens were involved with, and I believe it rivals The Amityville Horror, and surpasses the remake, Most of which were fine movies.
Visually The Conjuring was pretty sound, there were no aesthetic issues that I can pick out. The effects were pretty practical, any CG used was either kept to a minimum, the filter effect placed over the film added a nice look to the film. It look polished like the films of today but also had a slight vintage look. The film also had a dark tone that was present throught the film, even during the day the film had a dark look to it. The shots in the film seem thought out and well placed, there are no editing issues, the film as nice takes. The pacing of the film is great, the film chose a pace early and stuck with it. It had a nice slow but, not to slow pace to it. The way the movie progressed was complimented by the pacing. The setting is great the house, and land around it actually looks like it could be haunted, or like bad things could happen there.
So, Ultimately this film was pretty entertaining, it had a creepy atmosphere. One thing that made me a lil proud of this film was that, even though this is a horror film, it did not rely on jump scares, or cheap tricks like alot of other horror films. There were no, or practically no jump scares. This movie was trying to be genuinely scary without resorting to such things, and to some extent it works, because this film successfully builds a creepy atmosphere, and has some pretty out right scary moments, I can see how it scared people. The sad thing is though this film had perfect set ups for jump scares had they timed it right, like seriously they could of given people nightmares till the end of time, maybe. But, I do admire it for avoiding it.
It is not that I hate jump scares. They are one of the oldest staples in horror so, I can’t truly hate it. It’s just they can be a little bit of a cop out, and there over done, and often times there not used properly in my opinion. I believe jump scares can be good if they are utilized right, but also your movie shouldn’t solely rely on them. There is so much more to horror, alot of horror movies aren’t scary anymore, but, I believe they can be again. Horror to me is one of the greatest staples in cinema, and it is my passion.
Overall, if you haven’t watched this film I would suggest renting it, because while it is not the scariest film ever, it certainly is worth viewing, it has its strong points.