James Wan burst onto the scene with Saw back in 2004. I quite liked the movie and I think it gets unfairly lumped in with the endless torture porn sequels it spawned. The original was a clever little burst of paranoia and evil. I never saw Dead Silence (Wan's "creepy puppet" movie) nor did I see Death Sentence (his break from horror and attempt at a revenge thriller). Hearing the latter two films were kind of suck, I didn't drop back in with him until Insidious. The first half of that movie has some great little scares and creepy moments that make a horror movie really work. I understand he ran short of money before the end and it does lose a lot of narrative impact once his characters start roaming around the dream world.
I had heard good things going into The Conjuring. My cousin didn't like it but he admits he went in ready to hate it. Watching it apart from all the hype, I still have to rate it as an exceptionally well made horror movie. Even though a lot of scares in the movie are the same old, same old from other haunted house movies, Wan manages to keep things feeling fresh and tense. I had my jaw clenched almost the whole time.
Apart from effective staging, the movie has a couple of other strengths: casting and structure. The film begins with the story of the Warrens, real demonologists in the 1970s. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson bring the perfect mix of off-kilter likability (her) and manly stoicism (him) to work as protagonists. Set up almost like The Exorcist, we follow their lives as they debunk hauntings and teach classes while the main story simmers in a completely separate storyline. Ron Livingston (who I have loved since Office Space) and Lili Taylor (inspired casting due to her role in The Haunting) have five daughters and a dog being terrorized by an unknown force in their new farmhouse. All the adult leads are believable, likable and sympathetic. The dual structure allows the audience to grow attached to both the Warrens and the Perron family (those who are terrorized) so that the stakes are raised for all the characters once the forces of evil attack.
The corruption of childhood games can be terrifying if used well (see the knocking game from The Orphanage for a perfect example) and The Conjuring employs a great variation on Hide and Go Seek that allows the audience to know that things are going very wrong while the characters are oblivious. Once the explanations start coming out of just how many different entities they are dealing with, I marveled at how Farmiga (in particular) could keep a straight face while talking about witches pledging allegiance to the devil. The movie tries to mix up a straight up ghost story with a demonic possession (a la Paranormal Activity) and mostly succeeds. With touches of The Amityville Horror and The Exorcist, you could do much worse if you are looking for a late night scare.
As Wan seems to be gaining control of his abilities, Ti West seems to be improving as a horror filmmaker. I first saw his work with House of the Devil, the super slow burn movie about a Satanic Cult. I liked it quite a bit. He has contributed little segments to horror anthologies like the ABCs of Death and V/H/S which don't really affect my opinion of him one way or the other. Once I saw The Innkeepers, I was totally sold on his talent. One of my favorite haunted house movies of all time, it might actually surpass Session 9 as my favorite horror movie. I won't say why but it just hits all the right buttons for me.
My friend, Marcus, let me borrow West's first movie, The Roost. The running time would not qualify for a feature without the framing sequence of a late night creature feature show (a la Fright Night) that stars Tom Noonan. The frame feels like a bit of padding/an afterthought except for one intrusion into the story that could be read as a Funny Games style critique of pop violence or the filmmaker covering his ass by undoing the one bit of heartfelt emotion that slips into the movie.
To add another layer, there is a Halloween radio show being performed and listened to by all the characters as they drive around in the middle of nowhere. These radio voices usually provide some ironic commentary on the action and reminded me a little of Kevin Smith's title cards between the scenes of Clerks. These little loving homages to horrors of the past are delightful but also the only bits of the movie that worked for me.
The main meat of the story felt like a nearly impossible slog (I had to keep stopping it tonight to get all the way through and it is only 81 minutes) as four unlikable, completely undefined characters wreck their car and then wander into a farm filled with rabid bats that turn people into zombies or something. There is an implication that this may be a doomsday scenario. Unfortunately, I did not care what happened to any of these people and their agonizingly slow decision making felt like a time filler rather than anything useful or character building. When things don't happen in House of the Devil or The Innkeepers, it is usually to ratchet up the suspense or get us inside the mindset of people who are truly frightened beyond belief. Here, it just seems as if any action taken would resolve the conflicts too quickly.
I would say this is for Ti West completists only. A lot of the criticisms that were unfairly levied against his later work would be totally legit if used against this. The amazing choices of Tom Noonan just serve to underscore how little any one else is doing in this flick. Thank goodness West and Wan have both gotten better.
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