Conjuring

ConjuringIn 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron move their family into a dilapidated Rhode Island farm house and soon strange things start happening around it with escalating nightmarish terror. In desperation, Carolyn contacts the noted paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to examine the house. What the Warrens discover is a whole area steeped in a satanic haunting that is now targeting the Perron family wherever they go. To stop this evil, the Warrens will have to call upon all their spiritual strength to defeat this spectral menace at its source as it threatens to destroy everyone involved.


Amelia: When it comes to ghosts, I have a very Mulder stance of “I want to believe”. Meaning I wish I could believe in them but my common sense and scientific knowledge prevent me from accepting them as truth. I love ghosts, but they’re just not real. But of course there are people that wholeheartedly believe in spirits and that’s fine. If your beliefs don’t hurt anyone, believe them. Now, clearly the Warrens are those kind of believing people. I’ve actually watched a lot of ghost related reality shows that have featured them and I wouldn’t be so harsh and judgmental, going immediately to calling them frauds about their beliefs, if the two of them weren’t such insufferable, holier-than-thou, know-it-alls! Holy shit are their heads crammed up their asses! Their belief in ghosts doesn’t come from ghost themselves, but from their belief in themselves to know everything and solve everything. Have an angry spirit in your house? Well for a *nominal* fee the Warrens will sprinkle some holy water around and the placebo effect of their unwavering belief in themselves will just fix everything right up! The confidence they expel concerning their own abilities is astronomical in levels. Now take a guess at what the “con” in con-man stands for. You see where I’m going with this.

Con-man seems harsh until you know about the Amityville incident. It’s funny to me that people still think Ed and Lorraine Warren have any credibility after the whole Amityville Horror thing. In case you don’t know, a family by the name of Lutz claimed to have a huge number of freaky, supernatural stuff happen to them while living at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville. Ed and Lorraine went there to investigate and confirmed there are freaky, supernatural things in that house. Years later, after the Lutz family had claimed every penny they could from their story, they went on record saying they made the whole thing up over a bottle of wine. So where does that leave the Warrens? My antagonistic nature really shines here as I cackle and scoff and say that they’re liars, doing it for fame and money. Their pay cheque from this movie, and its sequel, were probably very nice indeed.

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Billy: I don’t have any history or knowledge about the Warrens apart from what reading what Amelia wrote just above, so my approach to their presence in this movie is sort of indifference more than anything. The relationship between the two is kind of like The X-Files if both Mulder and Scully adamantly believed in the supernatural, but also not really. That’s just the best comparison I can come up with because The Conjuring feels like an extended episode of a TV series. But like, a series fifteen episode after all the sexual tension has run dry and they have a kid. The movie bounces back and forth between the Warrens and the Perrons, showing us the haunting of this house both from the perspective of those who know and understand how hauntings work (aka us, after watching 31 horror films in a month) and those who don’t know jack shit about ghosts. It’s a nice way to have your cake and eat it too, I guess. You don’t talk down to your audience, but get to have all those classic moments of a family dealing with a haunted house as well.

Amelia: Given how I feel about the Warrens, it’s no surprise that I wasn’t quite able to get behind The Conjuring. It had a creepy enough backstory and it was even about ghosts – my favourite! But I just wasn’t crazy for it. Here is, once again, a horror story involving kids. And I find that horror movies that centre on kids usually build tension through the kids because they expect you to care about the kid’s safety. Which I never really do. Because, like the ghost in this movie, I too am a heartless, Devil worshipping witch. So there’s that.

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Pretty much me when I see children suffering

Billy: I liked the ending here a lot. I think it was at its best once we finally got waist-deep into the supernatural. Seeing Carolyn become fully possessed was an awesome payoff, and the movie built its dramatic stakes with the Warrens leading up to that inevitable point. Putting a sheet over her head while she was actually possessed was fantastic. We’ve seen The Exorcist how many times now? We don’t need to see her to understand. This actually put the unknown back into the known, and I think it works to create something new.

Still, I think an issue I had was that throughout the film there were simply too many ghosts in this house. Seriously, two suicides, a poisoning death, the rape and murder of an 11-year old girl, two drownings, and the passing of four men who froze to death? It was laughably unavoidable that the Perrons would get hit by something living there. I’m aware that this story is “based on true events” but the overcrowded supernatural premise in this movie simply didn’t add anything truly new to make the story stand out or warrant their presence. This was the story of a witch who was possessing a mother and was strongest when centred around that core. I liked a lot of the details in the buildup to that, especially how witches didn’t consider their own children to be children, simply a tool to mock God’s gift. I mean… that is some damn chilling lore.

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Amelia: My biggest problem with The Conjuring is how the whole production felt so standard. There wasn’t anything new here, despite Billy trying is danmedest to be nice to it. Because he’s nice to everything. I know that it’s hard to add to the ghost mythos because entities like ghosts can’t be changed like vampires or werewolves: there are “rules” to them that make them ghosts. And this movie follows those “rules” to a tee. Creepy basement, secret passages, prophetic dreams, ghost hunters montage of setting up equipment, all leading to a standard possession climax and evil is sent back to hell happy ending. It’s just… standard. Honestly I think the director behind this movie (and Insidious) just likes to put spooky shit behind Patrick Wilson and call it a day.

Billy: Going into The Conjuring, the only thing I really knew about it was, whoa, here’s Lili Taylor back from The Haunting! That’s cool! It’s funny, because Carolyn Perron here is everything Nell wanted to be. A homeowner, wife, and mother with a large and loving family, it seems like you could cut these two stories together to make something more interesting than either on its own. As much flak as I give that remake, Lili Taylor had the right approach in how to bring Nell to life. It’s the same basic portrayal for Carolyn here, only this time she has everything and is fighting not to lose it. A much stronger performance and story to support her arc makes her shine. It’s great to see her again in a movie that accomplished what it set out to do and gave her another chance at capturing that energy.

Spooky Verdict

Amelia: Four freaky things standing behind Patrick Wilson out of ten

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A standard ghost story presented crisply and cleanly, and I’m not saying that nicely. It’s a little too crisp and clean for my liking; made it too predictable. It wasn’t completely without entertainment but I expected more from a horror movie the whole world had hyped up to be the scariest thing ever.

Billy: Five and a half freaky things standing behind Patrick Wilson out of ten

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This is almost the kind of movie that acts as a baseline. It’s not an instant classic of the genre, but it’s not a terrible failure as well. It honestly accomplishes all of its goals and does a damn good job of creating a tense atmosphere. It just doesn’t do anything new or unique enough for me to love it. I think Lili Taylor was the most interesting part, but only because I wanted so much more after watching The Haunting. I’ll probably be thinking about those parallels for a while, and to me that’s worth an extra point.

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Don’t turn around, Patrick Wilson!
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Never turn around!
Amelia Wellman
fatal_frame_chick@live.com
I read, I write, I play videogames, Ghostbusters is my favourite thing in the known universe, but quasars come in at a close second. I've been known to cry at the drop of a hat over happy and sad things alike. I've also been known to fly into a rage if things don't go my way, leading to many a fight in high school and breaking someone's nose on the TTC one time. I'm an anxious introvert but also a loud-mouthed bad influence. Especially on my cat. He learned it from watching me, okay!

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