The Conjuring

The Conjuring
James Wan // 2013 // 112 mins

30 Days of Horror | Day 1

A Scary Theatre Experience

Insidious

As the first in my October Horror series this was pretty straight-forward to come up with, as it's not very often that the horror films I see at the cinema are all that scary. I was fairly certain that Insidious would be no different, despite all of the reviews telling me otherwise. I think that horror, like comedy, is one of the hardest genres to convincingly and objectively review, simply because the success of the film lies in each viewers subjective reaction to it.

My subjective reaction to Insidious was that it scared the crap out of me.

I've already reviewed Insidious here, and talked about why it scares me here, so I'll try to keep this brief so as not to tread over too much of the same ground once again. Something about Insidious really struck a nerve in me, which was only heightened by the huge screen/loud speakers set up of the cinema. I'm a sucker for a jump scare and always have been, but the scares in this film were unlike the usual. They weren't just jump scares, they were some truly horrific images that stayed with me long after leaving the cinema. At the time I first saw the film I was in my first year of University and had only been living in halls for two months and so sleeping in a still unfamiliar room with these images fresh in my mind was not a lot of fun.

Insidious affected me a lot more than any horror film that has been produced in recent years, and I love it for that. I went to see it at the cinema again in the hopes that seeing it a second time, and being able to prepare for the scares, would make it lose its impact. That didn't work, and hasn't worked with any subsequent viewings. It think it is safe to say that Insidious is one film that will keep scaring me over and over again.

Hauntings and Infections

No trailer post this week as Monday was a lot more hectic than I originally thought it would be, so to make up for it here is a super-sized review post.

As I was selecting films to put together for this micro-reveiw post I was aware that I could make a single post dedicated to a single genre. I am aware that a high percentage of the films I've reviewed on here so far have been either a part of, or closely related to the horror genre, but I felt that it would possibly benefit you readers if these posts were a little more organised into themes or genres than they have been so far. I can't promise that every post will contain films that are completely related or compatible but I will try my best to make them a little more cohesive in the future.    

I also just happen to have watched a pretty high number of horror films recently, so there's that too!

Monday Trailer: The Conjuring

I had a trailer post for today planned out and ready to write up when, about an hour ago, one of my housemates asked me if I had seen the trailer for a new film called The Conjuring. As soon as I began loading it I realised that I'd heard of it before, as the follow up film from the makers of Insidious.

The Conjuring

The film focuses on a family of seven who, after suspecting they are not alone in their home, call in renowned ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) to seek out and destroy the evil that is terrorising them. Unlike both of the trailers that I have posted about so far this one is entirely focused on narrative, to the point that it plays out almost as a stand-alone sequence taken from the film. With Insidious and his earlier film Dead Silence, director James Wan displayed a great prowess within the horror genre and, in particular, an adeptness at crafting clever and suspenseful scares, and that is brought in full force within this trailer. 

The premise of the trailer focuses on two sequences which feature the mother of the family (Lili Taylor) playing hide and seek with her children and investigating a noise from the basement. Both feature slow pacing and a reliance on extremely creepy jump scares that, rather than being predictable, build up and surprise. The trailer also features two brilliant uses of contrapuntal music, the first being the jovial song that opens the trailer and evokes a more family-friendly film, and the second being the old familiar eery music box tune that has become a stable of the genre. 

I find it interesting that the trailer has avoided divulging any of the ghost hunter storyline and also fails to acknowledge it's two biggest stars in Wilson and Farmiga. I'm sure that this trailer is being used to preview the style of the film and to set a tone for what is to come in the finished product. I think that its extremely effective and it has definitely gained my immediate interest in this film. The Conjuring is released on July 19th.