The Conjuring (15)
Verdict: Genuinely creepy
Rating: 
Can a haunted house still be frightening? This surprise American hit of
the summer, which out-grossed every blockbuster it was up against, delivers
spectacular reassurance that it can.
Among the most efficient horror films of the past two years was
Insidious, by Australian director James Wan.
Previously, he made Saw — a better-crafted movie than its many sequels,
and much classier than the flood of torture porn it regrettably inspired.
Now he’s turned his back on out-and-out violence, and applied his
talents to a ghost story that really happened.
Director James Wan delivers guts and gore in Saw. Here, he crafts a much
classier ghost story based on real-life events that brings claustrophobia, fear
and panic to the screen
The Conjuring records how real-life paranormal investigators and devout
Catholics Ed and Lorraine Warren (played for maximum realism, squareness and
humourlessness by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) were summoned to investigate
a demonic presence in a family house in Harrisville, Rhode Island.
This was occupied by laid-back non-believers Carolyn and Roger Perron
(Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) and their five daughters. It was nearly
occupied by their dog, but the mutt refused to go in.
Birds started flying into the house and breaking their necks. All the
clocks stopped at 3.07am. Then there were the noises . . .
Horror fans may already recognise the names of the Warrens.
Later in their careers, they investigated horrific happenings in a place
called Amityville, events which gave rise to several highly fictionalised
motion pictures, sequels and remakes.
Unusually, screenwriters Chad and Carey W. Hayes choose to tell this
earlier story from two quite different viewpoints: the Warrens’ and the
Perrons’.
This slightly diminishes the intensity of haunted house movies —
claustrophobia, fear and finally panic — but hugely adds to the sense of
documentary realism and lack of contrivance.
Fine acting also helps. We haven’t seen enough of Vera Farmiga since her
Oscar-nominated performance in Up In The Air.
She brings a barely controlled anxiety to the proceedings that reminded
me pleasurably of Nicole Kidman in The Others and the Spanish actress Belen
Rueda’s remarkable performance in the outstanding haunted house film of recent
years, The Orphanage.
Lili Taylor is another remarkable but under-used acting talent. She has
the ability to run the gamut of emotions from happy housewife to . . . well, I
won’t spoil it for you.
The sequence where she hunts for her youngest daughter in an ill-advised
blindfold game of hide-and-seek is a classic.
The film-makers make no attempt to explain precisely how ghosts operate
or, indeed, any other mysteries surrounding the afterlife.
Lili Taylor (pictured) and Vera Farmiga are under-used but remarkable
actresses who shine in this spooky setting
This may sound like a cop-out, but within the picture it adds to the
sense that the characters are discovering more as they go along — and may never
know the whole truth.
Will The Conjuring revolutionise horror films? No. Does it deliver
violence and gore? Not by modern horror standards.
But it is scary, and it conveys something even rarer in horror films —
the ring of truth.
There will be those who dismiss The Conjuring as the kind of hokum
they’ve seen many times before.
Liberties with the truth have been taken to compress the events of a
year into just under two hours.
I am interested that in real life the daughters were keener to stay in
the house than their parents, and the youngest felt a real connection to the
ghostly son of the family who built the house.
Many of the spirits were (according to the children who recorded their
experiences) benign, and it was the mother who was terrorised by a spirit who
regarded her as a threat. If more of that detail had been left in, the story
might have felt more original and less generic.
But Wan has clearly watched such masterpieces as Jack Clayton’s The
Innocents.
He knows that creaking doors, spooky cellars and the feeling that there
may be something hiding in that old wardrobe are tried-and-tested ingredients.
Given the right director — one who knows the value of long, suspenseful tracking shots and
leaving parts of the frame suggestively in shadow — these films still have the
power to unsettle and terrify.
I promise you one thing. Watch this and you’ll always think twice about
playing hide and seek. And you’ll never, ever use a blindfold.
The laidback
tone of the text and less complex vocabulary implies that it is aimed at the
‘general reader’, conjointly a primary target audience (15-25), will take more
of an interest to read a review like this as it is more to the point and does
not give background success and information on the director.
However this does not say that a mature
audience will not read this. This house style is highly common as the text is
still formal but to more of an extent conversational. For example “watch this and you’ll think
twice about playing hide and seek”. This is emotive to the readers and makes
them feel enticed within reading. Also the rhetorical questions make the reader
feel more to an extent involved.
The
large imagery is the central attraction as it shows key action scenes within
the film. The younger audience will be drawn into reading the review because of
this.
This
review could be aimed at people with a socio economic grade of d and below
(working class) because of the less detailed and ordinary writing style of the
review. The writer, David Tookey also
focuses on the cinematography used such as the tracking shots and how it was
effective in making the scenes build up tension as well as suspense. He also
sheds light on the fact that the storyline is original and felt less generic.
This is important for a reader to acknowledge as they will be interested in
watching a supernatural genre film that is unique from the rest.
The
conversational tone causes the readers to feel more at ease and decide for
themselves if they will view the film or not. There is also reference of the actor’s
names but he does not go into detail about their acting ability’s, this could
suggest he does not see this as a key theme to mention.
Reference: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2382739/The-Conjuring-review-Watch-youll-play-hide-seek-again.html Writer of review: Chris Tookey (Published: December 13 2013)
