The Conjuring

National Lampoon Magazine once featured a “horror movie calculator” or something like that.  I am recalling this from decades ago and I didn’t even buy the damn thing; I just read it standing in the drugstore.  Anyway, it a hierarchy of choices, such as “Monster cannot be destroyed by a) nuclear weapons; b) bombs or torpedoes; c) guns; d) villagers with torches”.  I saw right away that almost all the horror and sci-fi movies I loved could be easily generated by a fairly limited number of such options.  

The Conjuring (2013) certainly could.  Does the action take place in a) a haunted house; b) Tokyo; c) outer space?  Select a.  Are the primary characters a) a couple; b) a family with children; c) a group of potential heirs to a fortune; d) a group of ghost busters; e) criminals hiding out.  Select b and d. 

Despite that, TC is a rocking good horror movie.  It has more than its share of genuinely scary moments and the primary elements of the horror craft are consistent through the film.  I would point out immediately that one of the trailers is very misleading.  It leaves you expecting to see one more mockumentary.  Except for a few brief scenes, this is a traditional film.

The Story ****

In 1971, the Perron family, consisting of Carolyn (Lili Taylor from Hemlock Grove), Roger (Ron Livingston) and their five daughters, moves into an old house.  An escalating series of terrifying events convinces them that they are not alone in the house and that the ghostly presence means them no good.  

The action shifts back and forth between their story and that of Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson), two veteran paranormal investigators.  We watch as they come to the aid of a family menaced by a genuinely terrifying ventriloquist dummy.  The Warren house turns out to have a room containing the dummy and other cursed objects.  Why not destroy them?  It’s best to keep the genie in the bottle.  They also have a young daughter. 

The two stories weave together when Carolyn Perron enlists the Warrens to come to their aid.  Along with their team, the Warrens unravel the mystery of the cursed house and the land surrounding it.  Armed with that information (along with crosses and holy water) the battle between good and evil is joined. 

The film purports to be based on a true story.  The Perrons and the Warrens are real people and, so far as I can tell, Rhode Island is a real place.  I doubt very much whether anything in the film really happened. 

Acting/Casting *****

The casting was near perfect and the acting very good.  Lili Taylor and Vera Farmiga were equally compelling in vulnerability and fierce resolve.  Patrick Wilson’s portrayal of the ghost hunting Ed Warren is crisply authentic to anyone who has spent some time in small town churches.  He looks a bit like Pat Boone.  The children were all very fine as well, especially Joey King.  

Plot/Dialogue/Mood ****

The film is strongly scripted.  The initial story of the demon doll draws us immediately and effectively into the realm of horror.  The weaving together of the two sets of characters and stories is very effective.  As I watched one of the stories, I kept wondering what was happening to the other folks.  I can’t say that there was any moment in the film that didn’t hold my interest.  

The dialogue was solid, with only a few gaps and frayed threads in the narrative.  The mood of more or less ordinary people facing a steadily increasing menace was consistently maintained. 

The Catholic Church plays a supporting role in the story.  Ed Warren decides an exorcism is warranted but he is not qualified to perform one so he seeks the help of a priest and, in turn, the Vatican.  His deference to Church orders is a small but very robust element in his character and it gives the story an old fashioned feel that is very welcome here. 

Likewise, there is an element of paranormal science in the Warren’s story.  We see the two giving lectures.  In one lecture, Ed tells us that the worst cases proceed in three phases: Infestation, Oppression, and Possession.  First, the demonic presence attaches itself to its targets.  Second, it breaks down their resistance with repeated terror.  Finally there comes possession.  I don’t believe in demons or magic, but I like the idea of such things in fiction and such quazi-scientific demonology makes it feel more authentic. 

Finally, there is a bit of demonology that is worth reflecting on.  Ed Warren explains the difference between two kinds of disembodied spirits: ghosts that once walked the earth as living beings and, he can’t quite say “demons” so says only “the demonic”.  This distinction gets fuzzed a bit in the plot, but it is robust enough to raise a few hairs on this neck. 

Visual Effects/Action *****

The film does well by avoiding contemporary special effects.  The action works by people moving down corridors, crawling through crawlspaces, and falling down stairs.  Oblique camera angles and partially glimpsed backgrounds are the primary visual strategies. 

There are also a number of devices that work beautifully in the context.  One is a hide and seek game that the children play and the mother is enticed into.  The seeker ties a cloth around her eyes and feels for the hiders.  Three times she can all out “clap” and everyone has to clap twice.  I am not spoiling much by telling you that there are more sets of clapping hands available than there should be. 

Summary

It is not impossible for a big studio to make an effective horror film.  This one is pretty damn good.  For thousands of years our ancestors lived in a world populated by invisible, malevolent spirits.  They depended on priests and shamans to protect them.  Whether we have left that world or not is an open question.  One function of horror fiction is to entertain us and perhaps enrich us by bringing the view of our ancestors back into focus.  Sit down with The Conjuring for a couple of hours and see if it is like remembering something you once chose to forget. 

V/H/S & the brilliance of the small idea

What’s missing in most horror films isn’t the big idea but the small one.  Films with big ideas are great‑Night of the Living Dead (1969), The Blob, Cabin In the Woods‑but they are necessarily rare.  Films with small ideas are rare as well, but there is much less excuse for this.  Horror writers and directors should search for the little ideas that make a character and story genuinely captivating and nurture them with just the right degree of attention. 

V/H/S is a fine little piece of found footage film making that is pretty much a workshop for what I am talking about.  It accepts the usual flaws of the genre: annoying motion, implausible assumptions about people who keep filming while they are running for their lives, etc.  On the other hand, it makes a virtue out of the low budget project.  All the visual effects fit within the realm of the video recorder, which gives them a visceral kick that is almost always lost with CG. 

The film is an anthology of short horror stories.  The context piece involves a gaggle of hoodlums who apparently make a living by harassing people and selling the footage they record as they do so.  They are hired to break in to a house and steal a VHS tape.  One of them watches the tape, on which the other stories appear.  It’s a nice setup.  I got the idea (perhaps it was a product of my own imagination) that anyone who views the tape will end up on the next version of it.  

What makes the film unusually good is that each of the set pieces (with one exception) plays off an exquisite small idea.  In the first story, a bunch of rowdy guys set out to party on the town and hope to end up making a porn film.  Two of them are typical jocks and one is the essential nerd.  At a bar the nerd picks up a very unusual girl who has astonishingly big eyes but who can’t say anything but “I like you”.  She seems to become attached to them, showing up in each subsequent scene though we never see how she comes to be there.  That’s the small idea: the girl who seems to stick around even though she is barely noticed.  The filming here becomes a metaphor for our inattention to detail.  We get glimpses of her body that indicate something very sinister but only fleeting glimpses.   No one pays enough attention until it is way too late. 

Another story is a version of a very familiar one: boys and girls go into the woods and are stalked by a killer.  The small idea here is that the killer flickers in and out of reality, much like the images on the video.  The film makers used the device of video distortion to convey the supernatural power of the killer who can never be caught.  At one point the woman with the camera cries out in frustration: “Why can’t I film you?”  I share the frustration.  I couldn’t get a coherent screen capture of the killer.  He is visible in no single image even if he can be seen more or less as the film rolls. 

In another story, a young woman communicates with her boyfriend by means of a split screen program (Skype?).  We see his face in the lower corner of the screen as she tells him about the poltergeists in her apartment.  What looks like a very common story becomes uncommon by the small idea.  She thinks that something is inside her arm and she starts digging.  This is the most inventive and least predictable of the stories. 

I wouldn’t count this among great films, but it is surely a breath of fresh, if rather bloody, air.  Each story plays with a delicious small idea and tells you just enough and no more.  I really enjoyed this film and I suggest that you will as well.