shadyJ |
02-23-2014 04:34 PM |
I like The Conjuring, the setup techniques for all the big scares are perfected. It isn't a very original movie, but it feels like someone wanted to perfect an old formula. The timing is just right, the camera angles are just right, the lighting, the editing, all is just right for the sort of movie this is.
The only thing that stops me from placing it among the all time best haunted house movies is the movie lays on christian mythology a bit thick, also there isn't much of a character arc for anyone. The best stories are all about how people change, but that just doesn't happen to a great degree in The Conjuring. I guess the father becomes a believer, but the movie wasn't about him. The mother overcomes a trauma, and the family's love is renewed by the end, but those weren't such dramatic changes that the story or the audience is informed by them, anyways that wasn't main focus of the film's drama.
For me, the best haunted house stories happen when the protagonist and the haunted house setting (the haunting itself is arguably a character as well) realize some sort of destiny within the story. Some examples; The Haunting ('63 version of course), The Innkeepers, The Shining, The Changeling, The original Woman in Black (and to a lesser extant the remake), and there are others. The Conjuring just doesn't have this sense of inevitability, it's more about set-piece scares, however those scares are extremely well mounted. To sum it up, a great rollercoaster ride but not a great drama.
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