“The Conjuring”
Directed by James Wan
Starring Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingstone, Shanley Caswell, Jayley McFarland, Joey King, Mackenzie Foy
Horror, Thriller
112 Mins
R

The Conjuring represents that rare breed of horror that’ll actually have you wary of bumps in the night for days to come. Rather than a repetitive one-and-done game of “where’s the [insert evil entity here] going to appear next?” James Wan has crafted something rich in atmosphere, thriving not on jump-scares but within the DNA of its underlying psychological horror. Like the great genre flicks of the past, The Conjuring is able to present a demonic presence as a likely possibility. In this case, possession and exorcism are presented as undeniable realities. The upper-tiered acting, eerie vibes, and genuine scares add up to a tenacious nail-biter more content to tingle your spine than work your funny bone.

The “based on a true story” gimmick has always inspired doubt, especially within the confines of the horror genre. Audiences are natural skeptics concerning the cold hard truth of the “true events” taking place and for good reason. In most scenarios, we expect the setup to be somewhat congruent with the facts but the stilted Hollywood payoffs in the third act often leave us with cocked eyebrows and scrunched faces of incredulity. While much of the same can be said of The Conjuring, there is a degree of credibility to its dubious framework in large part due to the blessing of the two true-life characters on which the experience is based.

Selling this as nonfiction, Wan succeeds more than most. Using pull quotes from the actual demonologists (literally experts on demons) on which the film is based, we’re left swallowing our dubiety even when outside the confines of the film. Taking the true-story stance, Wan forces us to take this hair-raising experience home to our bedrooms, our hallways, our homes, challenging us to doubt the veracity of this haunted yarn.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson play the Warrens, a pair of god-sent ghost hunters and self-proclaimed demonologists noted for their staunch belief in the beyond. Farmiga plays Lorraine, a saint-like partner and loving soul with a particularly disturbed clairvoyance. Her abilities allow her to tap into feelings buried in objects or places, lets her communicate with passed spirits, and sometimes, even allows her to see dead people a la The Sixth Sense. Wilson’s Ed isn’t quite the spiritual philanthropist that his wife is but his lordly talents gives him a penchant for amateur exorcisms. Their “gifts” give them a pious knack for helping others. Instead of camping it up, Wilson and Farmiga take their roles seriously and for good reason; the Warrens are real people.

Although the real-life Ed is now deceased, Lorraine was somewhat involved with the making of the film, working as a liaison on the production. Even though we can assume that she is ok with the truth being bent – or possibly broken – every once in a while, it’s troubling to hear her speak about these events with unwavering belief. Farmiga harnesses Lorraine’s devoted credo and exhumes legitimate fear from the onscreen haunting.

Outside of this film, the true-life Warrens are no strangers to Hollywood adaptations. Their life work – experiences with the paranormal – have also served as the basis for the Amityville Horror films. While those films resulted in controversy and lawsuits disputing their integrity, this one is similarly shifty in how much of it is truly based on real events. In the end though, the situations are terrifying and unearthly. The mere idea that people could believe to have experienced these events becomes unsettling in itself. 

While Wan’s film leans on familiar tropes of the horror genre – the dog that abruptly dies, threat-posing, self-animating objects, and whispers in the nighttime hallways – the real horror lies somewhere darker, deeper, and more secret. In this pursuit of scrappiness, Wan sweeps campiness under the rug and proffers a no-nonsense enterprise in its place. Here, the mandatory genre stereotypes come to die as Wan proves that they can be icing on the cake rather than the whole kit and caboodle.

While skirting around these more familiar elements of the genre, the area that Wan has proved to understand and excel at most is pacing. With Saw, he built the jig up piece-by-piece so that when he finally revealed his cards, the audience felt the payoff was earned. Here, Wan doesn’t thrust us right in the midst of the story. Instead, he begins humbly and uses the first two acts to build up a wobbling house of cards that he subsequently knocks down.

While it takes a good portion of the first act to really crank the brooding aura up to ten, the foggy tone is foreboding in the most palpable of ways. In these first thirty or forty minutes (when the nature of the film is revealing itself), the air is thick with bad omens but nothing stands out as forcefully ghastly. But everything changes pace in a bedroom scene involving a mere shadow behind the door.

In that scene, patient pacing and deep, humming bass turns flesh into a goosebump disco. And while many films undercut themselves by revealing their monsters-in-the-mist too soon, this is a problem that The Conjuring doesn’t face. Even after we see evil personified, we don’t retreat into a feeling that the buildup was greater than the payoff. Instead, it actually manages to result in something substantial. Replacing his original build-up scalpel with a third act sledgehammer, when Wan lets himself go, the surgical horror turns bonkers.

Much of this has to do with the fact that very little of Wan’s film uses CGI as a stand-in for villainy. As a more and more frequent substitute for practical effects, CGI continues to be a jolting experience that takes us out of the situation and plops us right back into the theaters seats. It’s like being at a play and someone’s beard falls off their face. You remember that this isn’t reality and forget the false-reality being built up around you. For detouring around CGI, and largely avoiding gore in general, Wan proves that moving forward in the genre most likely means looking to the past.

The ground upon this all stands is the unfortunate family in great need of a full-blown exorcism. As a world-building architect, Wan employs the emotional complexity of the family as paramount to the whole picture. Thankfully, it’s executed by seasoned performers with dedicated bravado. Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston color the backbone of their characters with a feverish anti-caricature bringing this poor family and their poor five daughters to life. We’re along for their ride and, fortunately, we feel for them.

Behind the curtains, the production design really gives all these characters a space to occupy that feels intimate yet chilling, homey but alien. The sound team, lead by Joseph Bishara‘s hairy score, gives the film a lingering sense of frightful wonder. Sonorous bass and crackling strings loom and cut, loom and cut, splicing the sonicscape while hyping our building sense of apprehension. With all these well-executed production elements in play, the crème of the crop comes from the script. The Conjuring breathes terror with screenwriting team Chad and Carey Hayesknowing exactly where to mine for scares. They do so often and are frighteningly effective at that task.

All in all, The Conjuring is just an incredibly effective creeper that is much more likely to linger with its patrons than much of the horror fare of the recent past. As such, it’s a flag-bearer of horror as homage and fear as a genuine experience. While the early claims of this being one of the scariest movies of all time may be a little forced, it does sit high up on the shelf. Following suit, horror movies following in The Conjuring‘s footsteps will have to withstand a new harsh standard that’ll demand them stand on its own two-feet without handicapping themselves with CGI or excessive gore. Going forth, prepare for a regular knocking when using simple jump-scare tactics as a solitary and weak-legged crutch.

B+