Horror Film: The Conjuring

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The Conjuring is a “real” Hollywood horror film based on possession of the human kind by demonic figures. There's a dog that ends up doing the usual thing dogs do in horror films (they act scared and bark constantly or end up dying unknowingly). There's a doll that end up doing what dolls usually do in horror films (taunt the human body). There's some doors banging, some ghost hunters with motion detectors and UV lights, eerie TV static, and some creepy ghosts who appear out of the blue when you expect to least expect them, and to top it off they add creepy music and the spooky makeup that all ghosts wear so you can identify them or recognize them. When I said, "it's real," I mean several things. First, and the most obvious is the film is based to some degree on “real” events. It tells the horrific tale of the Perron family, who moved into a somewhat haunted farmhouse in Rhode Island in the early 1970’s. The Perron’s got connected with well-known ghost hunters Ed and Lorrain Warren to help them rid their home of evil spirits (after which Ed began the long lasting journey through hell to bring the story to the big screen years later.) Some of these qualities of the movie are quite charming; like the period hairstyles, or the style of the roleplaying and standards by Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston to play the Perron parents. Other claims of truthiness, though, are way less enjoyable. There are, of course, actual photos and the newspaper clippings that play over the end credits. And then, at the other side of the film, before we even get to our so called haunted house, we have scenes of the Warren’s (ghost hunters or demonic explorers) working other cases, and answering questions to interested humans in lecture halls to answer their ... ... middle of paper ... ...n (Director) mistakenly seems to believe can carry the whole film. On the strength "based on a true story", he has rejected attention-grabbing characters, an imaginative plot, and unforgettable villains. As a result, all we're left with at the conclusion is a little sloppy and a real quote from Ed Warren warning us that demonic powers are real and our own personal choices matter. Which may or may not be the case to you. But if evil and moral choices were what the filmmakers cared about, I wish they would make a movie about them instead of theses so called “horrific” events. Instead, The Conjuring is dedicated to the completely wasteful task of encouraging its viewers over and over, in various ways, to pretend that the unoriginal nonsense on screen actually happened in real life. That isn't scary actually It's not even startling. It's just another movie horror movie!

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