"The Conjuring" - - How I Spent My Dumber Vacation

If horror movies were high school students, "The Conjuring" would be the overachieving preppy girl intent on going to Harvard. What I mean by that is this movie seems scientifically designed to have all the elements that make a horror movie great, but at the cost of it's own soul.

Everything in this movie works, from the opening musical notes during the production logo to the acting, directing, cinematography . . .it is all above board. But let's go back to the preppy girl analogy. As long as everything is going according to the rules she sets up, everything is fine. But deviate from that prescribed course and it all goes to pot. Something that is so tightly wound up, so technically perfect, falls apart when it is no longer in control.

This is what I'm driving at: "The Conjuring" is a perfect horror movie . . .to see in a movie theater. But remove it from that context (i.e. watch it at home) and it turns out to be really, really boring and generic.




"The Conjuring" is based on a true story which is like saying my socks are based on a sheep. The material may be similar but if you want me to believe that somewhere out there is real life film footage a girl being tossed around the room like a groupie after a Rolling Stones show, and you don't show that actual footage, I'm calling BS on a lot of other stuff too. I'm sure Ed and Lorraine Warren did go to a house to investigate a haunting, but did a demonic witch and a haunted doll really team up for a subplot involving the Warren's daughter who was hundreds of miles away from the haunted house? Did Lorraine Warren really survive a fall that would have broken a normal person's ankles, and then get chased (!) by the most immobile of all ghosts; a hanging girl?

"You've never heard of Bathsheba? She's the demon that
made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs!"

All of these points don't matter when you're in the theater, though. It's dark and loud and more importantly the movie, not the audience, is in control. When the screen goes pitch black right before a demon jumps out it's a shock to the senses. When that music cue screeches across the THX sound system, you have no choice but to have your ears drums punctured right before something pops out. Like a well-designed rollercoaster, it is built from the ground up to scare you using the best techniques that it can.

But when you watch this at home, right before the demon pops up you think "Should I have raviolis for dinner? Oh wait, I ate all my raviolis. Maybe some baked potatoes oh look a demon kicking the shit out of 12 year old, man I need to clean my apartment."

This is pretty much what my apartment looks like, only with less lighting.

You may say, "Well, that's not the movies fault" but it really is. A good movie should work in all venues. Horror movies are definitely more intense in a theater but "The Ring" is just as terrifying at home. The Made For TV movie "Trilogy Of Terror," with it's final segment "Amelia" is considered one of the scariest stories aired on broadcast television. So horror does work on the small screen. It is so compelling, so in your face, that you aren't thinking of raviolis you're thinking "Don't turn around don't turn around don't turn around." When I'm watching "The Walking Dead" I leave the lights on specifically so I can check my locks multiple times from the comfort of my recliner.

"The Conjuring" is a well made movie theater movie, but it will spend the bulk of it's life being viewed at home. I'm sure everyone who saw it in the theater walked out amazed and told their friends who, like me, rented it and thought "eh." In the end, all that hard work that the cast and crew put into this film stumbles when it reached the home video market. Like the overachieving preppy girl, as long as everything goes according to plan it all works out, but eventually all that hard work breaks her down and she ends up on Youtube smoking Salvia, which in the end is more entertaining to watch at home than "The Conjuring."



And far more horrifying if you are a parent.


BONUS ROUND: I have some ghost/demon questions that popped up while I was watching "The Conjuring."

1) If a demon can posses/attach itself to a doll and chase people around, why doesn't it just posses/attach itself to a Predator drone and blow up churches?

2) If your goal as a demon is to possess people to keep them from moving onto your property, as was the motive in "The Conjuring," wouldn't it just be easier to possess a Home Inspector and have him say "Oh this house is full of black mold, so no one can ever live here."

3) Are Muslim, Atheist, Jewish, etc. ghosts also afraid of the crucifix? Wouldn't they be throwing around Stars of David and science books? Can a Jewish ghost even haunt a non-Kosher kitchen?

4) Why do ghosts always wear clothes? They are not only always wearing clothes but it's always clothes specifically from their time period. People die naked or in their underwear FAR more often than in an 18th century ballgown or a maid's uniform. If a cosplayer died, would they haunt a house dressed as Sailor Moon? What if you died wearing a really tight shirt, would you spend the afterlife with your gut hanging out?

5) Does anyone else think it's a coincidence that 90% of the things attributed to ghosts (doors slamming shut, things falling, cold spots, etc.) can also be caused by that mysterious force known as "wind?"

6) If a demon can hurl an 80lb girl across the room, than drag her by her hair across the floor, would it really matter if she got her hair cut? In "The Conjuring," when this happens Lorraine grabs a pair of scissors and cuts her hair where the demon is holding it and that's that.

"Help! I'm turning into a Troll doll!!!"

What if the girl was being dragged by her ankles, would they have cut off her legs? And if the demon can do that, why doesn't it just make the scissors fly around the room and stab everyone? Or possess someone, drive around picking up supplies, build a bomb, and blow everyone up? Or hell, just mix some household chemicals and poison everyone in their sleep?

And finally, 7) The set up for these movies are all the same: A big white family moves into a massive dream house on acres upon acres of land. They start getting haunted but can't leave because "we put all our money in our dream house" and then the Catholic church is called in and they cleanse the house and the family sells the house and gets all their money back. I want to see a movie where a poor black family is stuck in a really bad neighborhood and they don't have any money to move so they go to the Catholic church and say "Hey, can you help us out. There's no ghosts, but there's a lot of Crips in the neighborhood and we need to . . ." and the priest laughs and says "Yeah, good luck with that."