THE CONJURING

Director: James Wan (Saw,  Insidious )

A disclaimer.  This film purports to be based on true events.  My purpose is to look at the film on its own merits and, as such, I’ll not be touching on the truth of the story or the authenticity of the events it purports to show.

There is something deep in the human spirit that wants to be scared.  It may be a remnant from our ancestors who dealt with danger constantly but which means little to us in our (relatively) safe urban surroundings.  Whatever the reason, cinema-goers continue to flock to films expecting to be terrified whilst watching the movie through our face-covered hands.  The problem is that we’re becoming used to many of the tricks and techniques used by film-makers to scare us (which makes us empathise with the problems faced by the mangers in the original Monsters Inc movie).

The Conjuring does not invent anything new to get this sort of reaction from its audience but what it does do is to use the tools at its disposal in an artful and inventive way.  This, to the film’s further credit, is not accomplished with cgi trickery or an over-reliance on ‘jump’ scares (ega character turns around find themselves face-to-face with a demon).  Instead the director builds a good atmosphere by turning mundane objects like a music box or the sounds of hands clapping into a terrifying spectral phenomena.  Even when it does fall-back on the jump-scare it is skilfully achieved by restricting how many of these take place and the simple make-up and prosthetics achieve their desired effects.

The film’s flaws can mainly be found in the script, which, whilst this is extremely well-written with regards to intimate character interaction – this is particularly true with the paranormal investigators Ed and Loraine  Warren. However, it does falter a little when it comes to the excessive jargon the two speak in for much of the rest of the film . Quite often the family will be nodding their heads when these two lapse into paranormal mumbo-jumbo speak and we’re meant to believe that they understand what they’re saying and believe them totally.  What’s worse is that  a lot of this information is important to the plot and therefore starts to look suspiciously like’deus ex machina’ (information the characters know for no other reason to move the plot along). Some of the dialogue that is supposed to be deadly serious is so can be unintentionally laughable - "she climbed the tree, declared her love for Satan and then hung herself".   Maybe a Valentine’s card to Satan would have been much easier.

The climax of the film, sadly, slips back into the more clichéd exorcism images we have come to expect from this genre. For a film that has shown such restraint it is disappointing indeed when the over-the-top shouting and screaming takes over to remind us how dangerous the demons are.

The director, I feel, does not trust his actors enough to convey the fear and terror via their own talent, as they have done for much of the film, rather than rely on the usual cheap tricks. It’s certainly not a boring finale,our interest and investment in the characters ensure that we still remain gripped (again though this is down to the actors).  One can't help but think that Wan became nervous about showing enough of his spectral antagonist,forgetting perhaps that what you don't see can often be more terrifying than any visual horror. Nonetheless this minor misstep is thankfully not enough to derail the movie as a whole.

FINAL VERDICT -  8/10 extremely well crafted  in executing its  goal.