Happy Chinese New Year to all you reading this! To celebrate the holiday and the coming year of the horse, I am reviewing the 2013 Horror film the Conjuring by a director of Chinese decent, James Wan. For those unfamiliar with his work he was a writer for the well known Saw movie series and directed the quite disturbing ‘Insidious’ movie in 2011.
Let me start of first by saying that after watching the trailer for this film I had completely regretted choosing it as the first horror movie I’ve watched in nearly a year. It completely scared the shit out of me and is apparently one of the first movies to receive an R rating simply for being to damn scary, which really is saying a lot.
Supposedly based on a “True” story, The Conjuring unites the stories of Ed and Lorraine Warren, an actual couple that investigated ghost hauntings in the 70’s, with the Perron family who have just moved into a house where unusual things seem to start taking place. The family of 7 comes to the Warrens for help out of desperation and what ensues is as intense as any horror film I have ever seen.
One of the best things about this film is that it actually takes the time to be a film. It is set in the 70’s and the wardrobe/vintage movie props are on point, eerie, and an absolute A+. Characters, plots, and back stories are well developed and the acting is actually very good. The movie, which I mentioned earlier, has an ever present intensity, properly builds as a crescendo to the climatic ending. There are the stereotypical scary clichés in the movie (flashes of ghosts, possessions, dark basements, and creepy children whispering) but there are not a lot of cheap false scares, the intensity and subject matter takes care of that in a very nerve-racking manner. It was also shot very artistically, lots of creative cinematic moments that kind of make this more of a damn decent movie that also happens to be scary as shit then just another scary movie. I found myself further invested as a viewer as opposed to the blood and guts from beginning to end style of the typical slasher horror genre. For that reason I definitely would recommend this movie, even to those of you who aren’t typically into the scary movie genre. I do feel obligated though to tell any potential viewers that may be men to view this movie with a female who is NOT a scary movie veteran, as so many seem to be. You very well could end up screaming much louder then her, an embarrassment I fortunately just barely got away with.
Female: I can’t believe you didn’t even get scared!
Me: It wasn’t that bad (Thinking: ‘So lucky you scream louder then me’)
your scream wingman,
Fast Eddie
thescreamreel 