Ed and Lorraine Warren, names you may be familiar with as they are real people. They are some of the only investigators allowed to work in the Amityville house, which you have probably seen a movie or two on. The couple play a key role in this film, so much so that it detracts from the overall presentation. You see, they are not the main roles. That honor belongs to the Perron family. In this film the Warrens, try to assist the Perron family in ridding their house of some sort of evil entity. Coming to you from the director of "Insidious", can The Conjuring recapture what made that film work so well?
A family of 7 move into a new house in the country. The Perron family consist of a mother and father, and 5 daughters. The house is old, and has quite a history, however they bought it at action and don't know anything about that. While playing a variation of hide and seek, the daughters find a boarded up cellar and the father re-opens it. Shortly after weird stuff starts to happen to the family, until it escalates enough forcing them to seek outside assistance. This is how the Warren family is brought into their lives, and also serves as my biggest complaint against the film.
The beginning scene has two young nurses telling Ed Warren a story about a doll named Annabelle. If you are already familiar with Annabelle, being this is also a real event, know that they made her far more creepy in the film. The nurses are being haunted by a being who is trying to possess a doll to interact with them. This serves as a way to introduce the audience to the Warren family and tell you what they do. We see them teaching or giving some sort of lecture, and they explain about demonic possession. It all comes off rather forced, and only feels there so we will know who they are later. After that the movie moves over to the Perron family, and it feels normal again. However the movie keeps moving over to the Warren side of things, and you soon realize we are getting two stories that eventually intertwine. The Warren segments are neat, but feel out of place. They seem as if they were added as a homage to the real life couple, and not to further the actual film. While it is neat seeing the museum where they keep all there demonic artifacts, all of their scenes could have easily been reworked into a shorter single scene. It would have made the first half of the film far more natural, and enjoyable.
The acting is not bad, and in no way detracts from the film. The visuals and camera work do add quite a bit though. You can not talk about this film, without comparing it to insidious. Heck they mentioned that movie in pretty much every add for this one. But just like that film, The Conjuring uses creative camera and audio work to create a great and creepy environment or atmosphere. It also uses some good visual effects to produce tension. Such as looking in a mirror to help you see a entity. The mirror is out of focus at first, but slowly begins to become more clear. You know as soon as you can see perfectly, something will happen. By drawing it out, it seems to heighten the moment. There are also moments where you can see something, but the film in no way highlights it. I found myself asking my wife if she saw somebody in the background, and I was further drawn into the film. These may seem like small things, but I watch a lot of horror, and they are tricks most films seem to have forgotten. In a genre seemingly based on jump scares or gore these days, it was nice to see some good build up and atmosphere try to provide the actual scares.
So, is the movie scary? Well I would say no, but it did seem to effect my wife much more then me. It was creepy, it felt like it could be scary. But in the end, it seemed more interested in telling the story it wanted to. Once again I reference Insidious, I would put it on that level of scariness. You will not go home and cower under the covers, but you will jump a few times in the theater and get a good laugh when you do. Does that matter though? This is a horror film that does so much right, the overall lack of scare moments did not matter to me. Horror to me is a feeling, and it is not simply limited to me not sleeping at night. The Conjuring provided a great atmosphere, and a very disturbing vibe in the second half of the film that alone made it worth my money.
When ever a movie starts off by telling you "Based on a true story", I tend to get skeptical real quick. However in this case, it actually does have real events it pulls from. The main family in the movie is real, you can see some of them in the trailer I linked below. The two paranormal investigators are real, and rather well known in those circles. And the Events depicted, are based off of a real case involving both parties. After seeing the movie I did some research, trying to figure out what was truth and what was embellishment. Honestly it is hard to find out, while some of the people involved have done interviews, they did not say to much. The real Lorraine Warren is said to have been involved in the movie pretty heavily. And the oldest Perron daughter has said the movie houses many truths, as well as some fiction. The biggest difference is the time frame. The movie takes place over a small span of time, the real event lasted about 9 years. There is more, but I won't spoil it for you. Just go into the movie knowing that it is honestly based off of real events. And then look up the rest afterwards, you will enjoy it more that way.
So we have a film with a slow and convoluted start, but with a strong finish. One based on real events, and influenced by some of the people who experienced them. We have some jump scares, and some really cool moments. While it does not live up to Insidious, it does come off as a strong film in the genre. If you like horror, I would say give it a shot. This one is hard for me to grade, as the first 30 minutes or so were boring. But the rest came out strong and made up for it. I would say
A family of 7 move into a new house in the country. The Perron family consist of a mother and father, and 5 daughters. The house is old, and has quite a history, however they bought it at action and don't know anything about that. While playing a variation of hide and seek, the daughters find a boarded up cellar and the father re-opens it. Shortly after weird stuff starts to happen to the family, until it escalates enough forcing them to seek outside assistance. This is how the Warren family is brought into their lives, and also serves as my biggest complaint against the film.
The beginning scene has two young nurses telling Ed Warren a story about a doll named Annabelle. If you are already familiar with Annabelle, being this is also a real event, know that they made her far more creepy in the film. The nurses are being haunted by a being who is trying to possess a doll to interact with them. This serves as a way to introduce the audience to the Warren family and tell you what they do. We see them teaching or giving some sort of lecture, and they explain about demonic possession. It all comes off rather forced, and only feels there so we will know who they are later. After that the movie moves over to the Perron family, and it feels normal again. However the movie keeps moving over to the Warren side of things, and you soon realize we are getting two stories that eventually intertwine. The Warren segments are neat, but feel out of place. They seem as if they were added as a homage to the real life couple, and not to further the actual film. While it is neat seeing the museum where they keep all there demonic artifacts, all of their scenes could have easily been reworked into a shorter single scene. It would have made the first half of the film far more natural, and enjoyable.
The acting is not bad, and in no way detracts from the film. The visuals and camera work do add quite a bit though. You can not talk about this film, without comparing it to insidious. Heck they mentioned that movie in pretty much every add for this one. But just like that film, The Conjuring uses creative camera and audio work to create a great and creepy environment or atmosphere. It also uses some good visual effects to produce tension. Such as looking in a mirror to help you see a entity. The mirror is out of focus at first, but slowly begins to become more clear. You know as soon as you can see perfectly, something will happen. By drawing it out, it seems to heighten the moment. There are also moments where you can see something, but the film in no way highlights it. I found myself asking my wife if she saw somebody in the background, and I was further drawn into the film. These may seem like small things, but I watch a lot of horror, and they are tricks most films seem to have forgotten. In a genre seemingly based on jump scares or gore these days, it was nice to see some good build up and atmosphere try to provide the actual scares.
So, is the movie scary? Well I would say no, but it did seem to effect my wife much more then me. It was creepy, it felt like it could be scary. But in the end, it seemed more interested in telling the story it wanted to. Once again I reference Insidious, I would put it on that level of scariness. You will not go home and cower under the covers, but you will jump a few times in the theater and get a good laugh when you do. Does that matter though? This is a horror film that does so much right, the overall lack of scare moments did not matter to me. Horror to me is a feeling, and it is not simply limited to me not sleeping at night. The Conjuring provided a great atmosphere, and a very disturbing vibe in the second half of the film that alone made it worth my money.
When ever a movie starts off by telling you "Based on a true story", I tend to get skeptical real quick. However in this case, it actually does have real events it pulls from. The main family in the movie is real, you can see some of them in the trailer I linked below. The two paranormal investigators are real, and rather well known in those circles. And the Events depicted, are based off of a real case involving both parties. After seeing the movie I did some research, trying to figure out what was truth and what was embellishment. Honestly it is hard to find out, while some of the people involved have done interviews, they did not say to much. The real Lorraine Warren is said to have been involved in the movie pretty heavily. And the oldest Perron daughter has said the movie houses many truths, as well as some fiction. The biggest difference is the time frame. The movie takes place over a small span of time, the real event lasted about 9 years. There is more, but I won't spoil it for you. Just go into the movie knowing that it is honestly based off of real events. And then look up the rest afterwards, you will enjoy it more that way.
So we have a film with a slow and convoluted start, but with a strong finish. One based on real events, and influenced by some of the people who experienced them. We have some jump scares, and some really cool moments. While it does not live up to Insidious, it does come off as a strong film in the genre. If you like horror, I would say give it a shot. This one is hard for me to grade, as the first 30 minutes or so were boring. But the rest came out strong and made up for it. I would say
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