Combining elements of The Amityville Horror, Poltergeist and The Exorcist, The Conjuring provides the familiar thrills and chills (with a minimum of gore) from all three of those frightfests in an Overlook Hotel-sized creepshow that is genuinely frightening. Helmed by horror-meister James Wan (Saw, Insidious and its forthcoming sequel) and produced by specialists in the genre, The Conjuring has the additional bonus of being based on a "true" story—a factor that alerts audiences, no matter the genre—that here is something that needs to be given extra attention.
When done as well as The Conjuring, with all the hallmarks of the genre neatly in place, the "based on a true story" designation certainly helps to give a supernatural-themed movie like this the extra jolt that audiences queasily want.
The material comes courtesy of Ed and Lorraine Warren, who in their day were apparently the Liz and Dick/Brangelina/rock-star couple of the psychic world. Ed (who passed away in 2006) was the demonologist—an expert in the wily ways of Mr. Scratch (a.k.a. the Devil) and his evil minions—while Lorraine (who served as a quasi-technical advisor on the film) is adept in the ways of clairvoyance and has abilities as a medium. Together, these two claimed to have investigated more than 10,000 hauntings, with a batch of best-selling books and movies (The Amityville Horror, The Haunting in Connecticut, etc.) to show for their life's work.
The case involving the Perron family—which the Warrens tackled in 1971—involving something apparently different than the usual run-of-the-mill evil spirit. As the movie tells it, fresh off a case involving a child-sized evil doll (which serves as the prologue for the picture), the Warrens are giving a psychic lecture to a rapt audience when they are approached by Carolyn Perron (played by the luminous actor Lili Taylor), whose family was subjected to a series of events familiar to pretty much every supernatural enthusiast. Ed is hesitant to get involved but something in Carolyn's desperate plea reaches Lorraine and the duo visit the Perron's home, where Ed records Carolyn relating the litany of terrifying events up to that point.
From the moment Carolyn and her husband Roger (Ron Livingston, acting in a rather dazed manner) moved into the fallen-down, Victorian mansion in rural Harrisville, R.I., along with their five daughters, creepy stuff had been happening. As the family arrives and tumbles out of their beat-up station wagon, the girls dashing about exploring the house, the warning signs commence when the beloved family pet won't set foot in the place. A lot more follows: The clocks stop each night exactly at 3:07 a.m.; one of the little girls discovers a vintage, tinkling child's music box in which a shadowy "imaginary friend" appears in a mirror; the house is filled with cold spots; mom wakes up each day with more mysterious bruises; a secret, walled-off basement room filled with dusty, unsettling remnants from previous owners is found during a game of hide and seek; one of the girls resumes sleepwalking and knocks her head on an antique wardrobe; and another insists someone is grabbing her leg in the dark. This is all for starters.
Everything screams, "Get the hell out!" and with a houseful of five lovely young Linda Blairs and Carol Anns and one unaware, susceptible mom in residence (we all known that prepubescent teenage girls and their lonely mothers are Satan's preferred possession sites, right?), it's no wonder that the house's nasty demon can't resist trying to work some o' black magic on the ladies. (Dad is mostly away trying to make ends meet driving a truck on long hauls.) Things literally go bump in the night and by the time Ed and Lorraine arrive, the family (as well as the audience) is scared to pieces. (The seemingly innocuous hide and seek game is particularly unsettling.) Ed and Lorraine immediately sense Really Bad Stuff and, with their arrival, things kick into high gear. We then move from infestation and oppression into possession, step three in the Warren's checklist for "Hauntings 101." Before the local priest can get permission from the Vatican for an exorcism, Ed and Lorraine are forced to step in and take charge themselves.
By utilizing every bag in the genre, Wan and his screenwriters (brothers Chad and Carey Hayes), along with period-perfect scene design, really crawl under your skin. Taylor—with her careworn face, slightly raspy voice and everyday, commonplace unfussy acting style—has faced down evil ghosts before (in the big-budget remake of The Haunting) and brings enormous empathy to her role, as do the young actresses playing the daughters. However, it's really Vera Farmiga (especially) and Patrick Wilson, as the Warrens, who elevate the picture beyond its recognizable though entertaining scare tactics.
As essayed by Farmiga and Wilson, who have both had substantial roles in horror pictures before, the Warrens are more than a tad sanctimonious and have the melodramatic flourish that all faith-based know-it-alls do—their absolute confidence in their abilities, welded to an unshakeable belief that they know exactly what they're confronting (and how to combat it) are both comforting and more than a little off-putting. Farmiga and Wilson invest their roles with just the right balance of this central "niceness," world-weariness and requisite histrionics to make this kinda creepy duo believable.
The subplot—in which the Warrens store talismans from all their cases (including the aforementioned evil doll), each still inhabited by a demon, in a sunlit room within their own suburban home, admonishing their young daughter to keep out or else!—is just one more unsettling detail that helps give both the performances and the movie an uneasy edge. Away from their spirit work they're like a chirpy Carol and Mike Brady fussing over their daughter or giving interviews to skeptical reporters; however, when the local priest calls they exchange knowing looks and swing into action, both coming alive, infused with their divine purpose to battle Satan.
With Farmiga and Wilson in the roles, its fun to contemplate these superhero-sized ghostbusters headlining multiple sequels or a television show—and with those 10,000 cases to draw from, audiences should be prepared for the Warrens to haunt them for decades to come.
