“The Conjuring” is perhaps best thought of as a Girl Talk track: There’s nothing new or original about it, but it’s entertaining enough, and one can’t help but respect the craft that went into making something catchy out of component parts stolen from others. Happily lifting scenes and ideas from previous cheapo horror flicks like “The Amityville Horror,” “The Last Exorcism,” “The Woman in Black,” “Paranormal Activity” and others too numerous to count, “The Conjuring” is far from “brilliant,” as Variety’s Justin Chang described it. But it is an effectively scary horror flick that uses the cliches it employs to impressive effect. Roger and Carolyn Perron (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) have bought a creaky old house in the Rhode Island countryside. They and their five children are eager to move in and explore the new digs - which include a boarded-up basement filled with detritus. And creaky doors that open of their own volition.
And clocks that stop at the exact same time every night.Īs Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) helpfully explain in one of several exposition-laden lectures on the paranormal we see them they deliver, the Perrons are enduring the classic signs of a paranormal experience: infestation, oppression, and possession. As the activity ramps up - from stopped clocks to leg-pulling in the dead of night to actual demonic possession - the family and their new ghost-busting pals desperately hunt for a way to stop the evil.ĭirector James Wan (“Saw,” “Insidious”) effectively ramps up the tension, walking the audience through the familiar steps with brisk aplomb. It’s telling that even when the audience knows something is about to happen - a spook in a mirror, a demon in the darkness, mysterious sets of hands clapping - the filmmakers still managed to get a reaction. Many lines of dialogue went unheard as a result of audience members cathartically laughing in an effort to release the tension. (Others were lost at the screening I attended because audience members were talking to the screen. In 1977, paranormal investigators Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren come out of a self-imposed sabbatical to travel to Enfield, a borough in north.
When you’re in a theater filled with people, please zip it.) As a reminder, folks: Filmgoing is not an interactive experience, and you are not nearly as clever as you think you are. “The Conjuring” is aimed squarely at the segment of the population that goes to see all such horror films. Ti y, mt b m n thn sng cng 4 a con ca mnh. Hollywood keeps churning them out because they keep making money: Produced for around $13 million, “The Conjuring” is all but guaranteed to gross somewhere between $50 and $60 million. The Conjuring 2 (2016) Phim m nh Kinh Hong 2: Bi cnh ca The Conjuring 2 din ra ti mt ngi nh qun Enfield, nc Anh, trong nhng nm cui ca thp nin 70.
The Conjuring doesn't only terrify its audience, but also manages to shed sunlight in on the dark story with touching moments such as a family singalong to Elvis' "Can't Help Falling in Love With You", these moments don't feel cheesy or unnecessary, but seem more pivotal to the story of the family over any cracked limbs or possessed children could.Why push the boundaries when you can just throw together a stew that rips off all the other popular products, serve it to customers, and watch the dollars pour in? It’s as close to a sure thing as there is in Hollywood.īut sure things breed timidity and complacency. Valak is so undeniably creepy and is probably the most memorable villain from any supernatural horror film of the last 20 years, in my own opinion. The doll is replaced with a black-eyed spectre known as Valak, who dresses as a warped Nun figure to attack the Christian faith of Ed and Lorraine Warren - the psychic heroes of the series.
Whilst the first Conjuring focused on a lowly farmhouse in Connecticut and honourably mentioned the now infamous haunted doll case of Annabelle, the sequel moves attention to a poor family in the east end of London dealing with a poltergeist, drawing parallel to Amityville.
The Conjuring 2 focuses on the "true story" of the Enfield Haunting, London's answer to the Amityville tragedy. Horrifying and heartwarming at the same time, bizarrely, The Conjuring 2 does exactly what a sequel should do: ratchet up the scares a notch, add actual information to the story, answer unanswered questions posed by the predecessor and not just rehash familiar territory we've already seen.