Runtime: 1 hour, 51 minutes
Rating: R
Director: James Wan
Quick Impressions:
My husband and I almost never go to horror movies. Neither of us wants me to get so terrified that I can’t sleep for a week, and plus horror movies are really scary. In an earlier review, I explained that I like only beautiful horror. No exorcisms or Satanic vomiting for me, thank you! And yet somehow we ended up at The Conjuring.
(Spoiler alert: Well, no I changed my mind. I won’t tell you. But do I have to tell you, really? Surely previews and word of mouth are enough to let sensible people know what to expect from The Conjuring.)
I don’t think my husband realized what we were getting into until the previews started. Here’s the thing. We went on vacation last week and didn’t get a chance yet to take the kids to Turbo, but that didn’t seem appropriate for date night. We wanted to watch something that was relatively new, not aimed at kids, and yet also playing at the brand new theater we were desperately excited to check out.
No, I don’t like Satanic vomiting, but I do love bottomless popcorn, an extensive drinks menu, and cool Planet of the Apes theming (including a giant statue of The Lawgiver). I also like Vera Farmiga (and not just because her name reminds me of veal parmesan—which I feel so conflicted about enjoying—and makes me crave Italian food; she’s also a very good actress), Patrick Wilson, and Lili Taylor. While none of them is my all-time favorite actor, that’s a pretty high caliber cast for a horror movie. I figured they wouldn’t bother casting real actors unless they needed real acting. As it turns out, the gorgeous and memorable Joey King is also in the cast.
While admittedly, it is scary as Hell, The Conjuring surprised me by being easy to watch and quite enjoyable. The cast is good, the story is coherent, and the cinematography is nice. Plus the movie provides a pretty good mix of spooky set up, psychological horror, jump scares, and viscerally disgusting evilry (that’s like evil revelry, you know). The main musical theme is horrifically discordant, loud, and the auditory equivalent of gargoyle puke, but that seems to be the effect it’s going for, so what can you do?
The Good:
This movie is scary, and that’s the whole idea, so it ought to get bonus points for being terrifying. About two months ago, after a night time stroll through a cemetery, I became completely convinced that our bedroom was haunted. (Well, I wasn’t completely convinced in the day time—only at night when I’d start awake because I could feel somebody grabbing my feet or I’d see somebody standing at the foot of the bed staring at me. But, after all, as my husband pointed out, we had all been in the cemetery, and we were all in the house, and only I saw the ghost, and ghosts don’t follow you home.) So as I watched The Conjuring, my thoughts went in three directions at once. I kept thinking:
1.) This is not that scary. The beginning is actually quite slow. It takes a long time creating a creepy mood. Maybe I’ve been avoiding horror movies for no reason. Maybe I’m tougher than I think. This is not the slightest bit scary at all. It’s very easy to detach myself from the story.
2.) What?! Did they just say that the demonic presence goes after the most psychologically vulnerable person in the house? No wonder I’m the only one who sees the ghost. Why is it grabbing her feet in bed? That’s exactly what it did to me!!! Knocking three times! That happened, too! Oh my God! And what did they just say about smelling like rotten meat? I thought that smell would go away after I cleaned out under the bed and found that dead mouse. But no, it’s still there…sometimes…in the night…
3.) I need to be watching this with a critical eye, trying to make the mental notes I’ll need to write a good review. I should be thinking about which scenes…What??! The thing is attached to them!!! Oh my God! I thought ghosts couldn’t follow you home. Oh and my stepson is the only one of us who isn’t baptized—is that why he was the only one who got a picture of a ghost that night? And did it follow us home??????????
Good grief! I think it’s safe to say this movie succeeded in scaring me. Thank God we don’t own a creepy, porcelain faced, Victorian era China doll puppet thing, or I’d probably be in a straitjacket by now. (Why in the world do people keep ancient porcelain dolls/puppets with painted/cracked faces around, anyway? I hardly ever watch horror movies, and even I know that’s the first step toward evil.) At one point, I felt like something was biting my leg. Finally it got to the point that I ran out of the theater to check my legs for bites (which were not there) and my shorts for monstrous vermin of some sort (also not there) in the bathroom.
I mention all this here because I think my thought process reveals how effective the movie was in instilling fear in the audience. As I felt the vaguely bitey sensation, my first thought was, I picked up some horrible creature at the beach that came home in my jean shorts even though I washed them. The second thought was Oh my God! I am being haunted, and the ghost is tormenting me now because it doesn’t want me to watch this movie and find out the truth!
Seriously.
This is why I don’t usually watch horror movies.
Besides being scary, this movie is also well cast and well-acted. Patrick Wilson has been in ninety billion movies, but I haven’t seen most of them, and I always think of him as the guy from Little Children (an excellent film and also disturbing in its own way). As Ed Warren, Wilson plays probably the blandest adult character in the film. (Well, “blandest” may not be the best word for someone who the opening scenes tell us is the only non priest authorized by the Roman Catholic Church to perform exorcisms.) He’s definitely the least ostentatious adult in the story, though. But Wilson plays the part really well. He never seems less than believable. You never want to mock him. You never doubt him. He’s very convincing.
Meanwhile Vera Farmiga is conspicuously marvelous as his wife Lorraine. The story is set in the 1970s, but she has the vague air of a relic from an even earlier era, which fits the character (who onscreen appears to be) a very Catholic (or at least quite devout) medium (which seems a little paradoxical, admittedly). Lorraine is a fascinating character, and Farmiga brings her to life particularly vividly, adopting the stature of a wilting flower that makes dramatic nastic movements toward strong presences that nobody else sees. (I realize the metaphor is a little labored, but so is the performance. It works, though. It’s quite convincing and a lot of fun without being mockable or silly.)
Lili Taylor (perhaps the only cast member of the ridiculously unscary The Haunting who realized she was supposed to be in a horror movie while Owen Wilson and Catherine Zeta-Jones were just kind of hanging out) is also quite memorable as Carolyn Perron, anemic mother of five girls, and clearly the most psychologically vulnerable person in the house (and pretty much the entire movie).
I also really liked Ron Livingston as Carolyn’s husband Roger. I thought he was by far the most interesting male character giving the most intriguing performance. (On paper, surely the non-ordained exorcist is the most interesting character, but I really like what Livingston does as Roger. The performance is so compelling.)
All five girls are also good, but for me, the obvious standouts are gorgeous young Joey King (who played the beautiful child in The Dark Knight Rises and the China Girl in Oz the Great and Powerful) as Christine, and Hayley McFarland (the daughter on Lie to Me) as Nancy. My husband also noted that Kyla Deaver as April looked conspicuously like ET era Drew Barrymore.
Best Scene Visually:
From start to finish, The Conjuring blatantly avails itself of practically every visual horror cliché in the book. Seriously people, if you’re hoping to avoid demonic presences, stop leaving Victorian era porcelain dolls around your house and invest in a good washer and dryer so you don’t have to hang your sheets on a clothesline in the yard. I have never seen so many billowing sheets in all my life—and all of them a brilliant, gleaming white.
Apparently, all of the best mediums hang out under clotheslines on blustery days. Probably the coolest scene visually involves Vera Farmiga zoning out under a clothesline full of white sheets. If memory serves, there’s a really similar scene in The Gift (only its Cate Blanchett zoning out instead of Vera Farmiga). There’s a little jump scare at the end of this one, and it’s pretty good (and an image I won’t soon forget).
For a while, I was like, “What is it with all these billowing sheets, and rustling curtains, and crackling leaves, and swinging doors?” And then I realized, “Ah yes, the wind is spooky. Like ghosts, we don’t see the wind, but we detect its presence by the reaction of more tangible things.” The spooky atmosphere in this is really great, and it builds and builds and builds.
Funniest Scene:
There’s this really great scene from The Brady Bunch that’s inclusion seems funny in retrospect because of something that happens later. (Jan is always so jealous of Marcia’s fabulous hair—even more so in the zany 90s movies than in the actual show.) (The priest’s reaction to the film footage is also quite droll.)
Lots of people also laughed (out loud) in our theater when Annabelle popped back up again late in the film (because who didn’t see that coming, and it was so over-the-top). I didn’t laugh, but I was glad other people were laughing because that made the moment less scary.
What did make me almost laugh was something that immediately follows what has to be the grossest (though mercifully also the briefest) moment in the movie. After what happens (yuck), it’s kind of amusing that the character insists just moments later that she’s basically fine. (I don’t think it’s meant to be funny, but it amused me.)
Best Scene:
By far my favorite scene is the one in Nancy and Christine’s bedroom (the time early on when Christine sees something behind the door). That’s so absolutely bone-chillingly creepy—especially if (like me) you’ve ever woken suddenly in the middle of the night certain that someone has grabbed you by the feet or shaken the end of your bed.
Best Action Sequence:
The last big action sequence is a little over-the-top for my liking. Weirdly, it is the least scary scene in the entire movie (even though it’s the grossest and most blatantly evil). Watching it, I felt weirdly sure that the movie would have a happy ending…and soon. I’m not sure why. (I also found it ludicrous, almost amusing, that one character yelled out some vital information near the end to give us this bizarre eleventh hour melodrama that felt a little bit too zany to be believed.)
The hair part is pretty much impossible to look away from. It’s probably the best action sequence in the film, although the falling bit is good, too, and personally, I liked/hated the increasing danger in the scene with Judy. To be honest, that portion of the film freaked me out the most. I never felt genuine concern for any of the Perron girls, but I was beside myself with worry for Judy.
The Negatives:
I have a hard time responding critically to this movie because it kept me so consistently scared that I didn’t have time to think about much else beyond the possibility of my bedroom actually being haunted. (Granted, now that I’m home, I realize that it’s not haunted—although it was hard to believe that when the rosary I was wearing around my neck spontaneously exploded, sending beads flying in all directions. I just have the most dramatic form of sleep paralysis, complete with incubus/succubus stuff and lingering dream images (and I also had an old rosary). And that terrible smell is probably just a dead mouse in the vent somewhere—which is tremendously reassuring as you might expect.) The same thing happened to me when I watched Dark Skies.
I suppose that’s one criticism I have. This movie is supposed to be based on a true (but never told till now) story. But then at the very end, the credits admit that some events (and even some characters) have been invented for dramatic purposes. And there are some huge similarities to Dark Skies—they target and isolate the most vulnerable one, the bird stuff, they never leave you alone, etc.
Is this movie actually true? I hope not. I can tell you one thing, though. It should be a PSA to increase church attendance. It would work. I dare any (practicing or lapsed) Catholic to see this movie and not think immediately, I need to go to mass. Now. Right now.
Also why in the hell do the Warrens keep all that creepy Satanic stuff in what looks like their rec room? I hate to break it to them, but telling their elementary school aged child never to go in there, and then leaving her home alone with her frail old grandmother is pretty much a recipe for disaster. Sometimes it’s better to keep the genie in the bottle, Ed? Okay, fair enough, but I don’t think you should keep your child in the same bottle.
I was also hoping we’d find out a bit more about what happened to Lorraine the last time. I thought something more would come of that in the end, either some resolution, some more information, some kind of tie in to currently unfolding events, something. But the movie let me down there.
I also would have been much happier if the family had never had a dog in the first place. Animal lovers beware.
Overall:
I’m really on the fence. Is playing hide-and-clap in a creepy old house with boarded up rooms totally exciting and a great idea or a foolhardy recipe for evil-imbued disaster? I’m probably wrong to feel this way, but as I left The Conjuring, I found myself yearning to try my hand at hide-and-clap. Who wouldn’t get a little thrill from wandering around a haunted house while wearing a blindfold? Doesn’t that sound fun?
But don’t let my glib chatter about hide-and-clap fool you. The Conjuring is scary as Hell. It has several good jump scares, but it also builds a pervasive web of psychological terror that is sure to entrap even the most jaded horror fan eventually. It’s a good movie (even though it doesn’t feel quite as true as it purports to be).
If you like scary movies, go. But definitely do not take your children (unless they’re teenagers and you’re desperate to find a way to motivate them to wake up for church every Sunday).