By BRUCE DENNILL
The Conjuring / Directed by James Wan / 16VH
It’s incredibly difficult to make a film that’s actually scary anymore. Hollywood has gone through the motions too many times, and the conventions and tropes that are meant to make audiences shriek and shiver have become so clichéd as to be laughable – you’re more likely to derive entertainment from predicting the next piece to fall into place in the predictable puzzle than you are from the actual narrative.
The Conjuring features creaking doors, dusty basements and houses with twisted histories, but it has a compelling story – based on a real incident – and a combination of strong visuals and a fine feel for tone and pace on the part of director James Wan.
The story is grounded in the case files of Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) Warren, a married couple who specialise in discovering, defining and removing (if they’re malignant) supernatural forces from the homes or places of work of everyday types who understandably feel a little put out when the walls start bleeding.
Presuming that the Warrens are as sensible, stoic and courageous as their on-screen avatars, Wilson and Farmiga do a wonderful job of creating the type of team that could survive the stress such a lifestyle would guarantee. They get scared, but they believe in themselves and in their calling – there’s a strong spiritual aspect to their work, though it’s never overstated – and it’s feasible that such people could provide an anchor for a young family whose dream home slowly becomes a knacker’s yard for a range of phantoms.
The back-story to the haunting is detailed and dark and – crucially – it covers all the bases, which is more than can be said for just about every other title in this genre. Wan ensures that you never see all the shades (pun intended) of his restless spectres. Even once the big reveal has happened, he and his characters employ some clever cinematic sleight of hand that ensures that the tension is ratcheted up from “unbearable” to “the hair on my arms has been standing up for ten minutes straight and why is the dog so edgy?”
If you’re cynical, you’ll laugh at some of the characters’ tics here; you’ll wonder why the family don’t just leave and go somewhere else; and you’ll grin at the low-level scare tactics that Wan uses to prepare the ground before the ball really starts rolling.
But regardless of how thick your skin is, the quality of the filmmaking is unmistakable, and you you’d need to be a zombie to not be frightened by what transpires onscreen here. Mind you, if you were a zombie, you’d probably have some sort of undead connection with the unseen villains of this piece. And you’d still be freaked out – that’s how effective this film is.
