The Conjuring (2013)

In 2004, modern genre maestro James Wan cut his teeth in the horror genre with Saw, written by his frequent accomplice and fellow horror fanatic, Leigh Whannell, kicking off the unfortunate craze of what is now referred to as the "torture porn" subgenre, which by definition emphasizes physical human suffering and bucketloads of bloodshed over an authentic feeling of suspense. Despite racking up one of the most successful horror franchises, numerically speaking, with currently ten installments, this seasoned genre junkie has only seen the inaugural installment, and I'd say that's quite enough for my taste. Six years later, the poetically surnamed Wan and Whannell would redeem themselves by shifting to a lower gear courtesy of their haunted house thrill ride, Insidious, which fell on the complete opposite side of the horror spectrum for the better. Instead of two grown men finding themselves chained in a dirty bathroom and forced to amputate their own limbs at the behest of a seemingly talking puppet from behind a TV, a married couple is put through the emotional wringer after they move into a spooky new house in which their oldest son suffers a nasty fall and becomes ensnared in a demonic netherworld. Not only did Wan exercise his technique for ratcheting a heart-stopping level of dread without the aid of gory eviscerations, but he culled a stellar performance of unadulterated, body-freezing fear from the usually comedic Rose Byrne in the process. 

Unfortunately, after displaying his haunted house chops with a brilliantly directed buildup, Wan and Whannell dropped the ball in the final reel, spoiling the quiet, patiently paced anticipation of the first half with a numbingly chaotic, visually disorienting showdown in which all the demons from the so-called Further were unleashed into the home of the protagonists and started throwing characters across the room. It was more exhausting and silly than legitimately terrifying. Nevertheless, they regained some of their mojo in the chilling final scene, aided once more by Byrne's wide-eyed, mouth-gaping reaction to a horrifying twist revelation. 

All it took was a timespan of three more years for Wan to craft his magnum opus, this time aided and abetted not by his customary writing partner, but rather the brotherly duo of Chad and Carey W. Hayes. With all due respect to Whannell, who has since demonstrated the magnificence to both write and direct his own horror movie in 2020 with his timely and boldly original take on H.G. Wells' 1897 science fiction horror novel, The Invisible Man, it's clearly for the best that both men went their separate filmmaking ways because Wan and the Hayes brothers make an infinitely superior team. Wan is a skilled horror tactician, and the Hayeses just so happen to be better screenwriters. Together, using the real-life investigations and claims of a now-deceased married couple of demonologists and a middle-class family of seven, Wan and the Hayeses have, dare I say, conjured an unqualified modern masterpiece in the realm of haunted house horror. Put side by side, Poltergeist comes across as pure, pathetic child's play. 

Atmospheric, harrowing, dripping with nonstop suspense, and above all exhilaratingly fun, The Conjuring blends the simple, nightmare-inducing, bump-in-the-night spooks of a haunted house chiller with an uplifting message of hope and the indestructible force of familial love, resulting in a traumatizing ordeal that curdles the blood as deftly as it warms the heart.

The opening immediately sets the tone for the supernatural horror to follow. Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, respectively) are a wedded power couple of paranormal investigators. Lorraine is a gifted clairvoyant, while Ed is the only non-ordained demonologist recognized by the Catholic church. As the blackness of the screen fades to light, dim as it may be, our eyes are assaulted with the smiling, tattered plastic face of a doll named Annabelle. As "she" sits politely in a chair, two terrified young nurses named Debbie (Morganna May) and Camilla (Amy Tipton) explain to the Warrens how they granted permission to the spirit of a lonely deceased girl named Annabelle Higgins to take residence within the doll, only to realize soon after what a grave mistake they had made. Upon returning to their apartment from work, the women would find Annabelle in different positions and rooms from which she had been left. At first, the changes were almost imperceptible: her head would be looking up instead of down, a hand or leg would move into a different position. Soon enough, it appeared to be moving around by itself. 

Very quickly, the renowned demonologists discern exactly what's going on. "Firstly, there's no such thing as Annabelle," states Ed, "and there never was." There never was a little girl who died in the apartment and simply wanted to make friends with the new occupants. Rather, this is an inhuman spirit who preyed on the kindness of two naive nurses who've made it their mission in life to help people. Unlike Chucky, despite her unnerving appearance, Annabelle isn't your stereotypical possessed doll. In fact, she's not even possessed. She's a conduit, Lorraine explains, moved around to give the impression of possession. Inhuman spirits don't possess objects, however. Their goal is to possess people. This demon has been trying to worm its way inside the women who invited it into their home. Wan creates an atmosphere of instant apprehension using the fundamental building blocks of supernatural horror: a gloomy apartment, flickering lights, the question, "Miss me?", written on crumpled paper and in large letters across the ceiling in red crayon, the sound of said crayon rolling across the wooden floor, and most classically of all, the constant reappearance of the Annabelle doll. 

This is just an appetizer for the four-course meal to be presented to the Perron family. While the Warrens call in a priest to bless the apartment and lock the conduit away safely in their storage room, the fresh batch of soon-to-be victims don't get off the hook so easily. Three years later in 1971, married couple Roger and Carolyn Perron (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) relocate from Jersey to a farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island with their five daughters: Andrea (Shanley Caswell), Nancy (Hayley McFarland), Christine (Joey King), Cindy (Mackenzie Foy), and April (Kyla Deaver, who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Drew Barrymore). Admittedly, none of the characters are granted much definition. Roger is a contractor whose work often takes him away from his family for a few days, while Carolyn is the quintessential homemaker and nurturer for their girls. Of the five daughters, only Andrea's personality is marginally differentiated by way of (1) she's the oldest, and (2) she's resentful of her folks for taking her away from her hometown to live in "the middle of nowhere."

Apart from the sulky Andrea, the remaining four sisters are enthusiastic about their chance at a fresh start, familiarizing themselves with their new home, christening it with their favorite game, hide-and-clap, exploring the boarded-up cellar that no one bothered to investigate before moving in. It doesn't take long, however, for the haunted house tropes to rear their ugly head. The family dog, Labrador Retriever Sadie, is the first to sense something off about their home, refuses to come inside, spends the first night barking incessantly into the air, and is found dead the following morning. (Oddly enough, once she's buried in the backyard, not a single mention or inquiry is made about her mysterious passing, nor do any of the girls express much grief apart from one throwaway line by April.) Every clock freezes at precisely 3:07 a.m. A rancid, rotting meat-like odor drifts from room to room. The youngest child, April, makes friends with the ghost of a little boy named Rory who only shows himself to her. A horde of birds inexplicably starts flying into the side of the house as though a force is beckoning them, breaking their necks. No matter how many times the parents turn up the heat, the temperature remains freezing. And of course, characters commit the irresolvable error of wandering alone outside in the dark or downstairs in the dimly lit basement to investigate strange noises. (You can practically hear Ghostface laughing sadistically at their lack of horror-movie awareness.) 

As the paranormal activity mounts each night, graduating from harmless tugs on the leg to outright physical assaults, Roger and Carolyn enlist the help of Ed and Lorraine, who reluctantly agree to investigate. As soon as they set foot inside the home, Lorraine is able to detect a powerful demonic force that has latched itself onto the Perrons and is slowly feeding off their fear. With no option for the family to make a run for it -- "Sometimes when you get haunted, it's like stepping on gum: you take it with you," Ed explains -- Ed and Lorraine selflessly decide to move in for the duration of the cleansing, gathering evidence for the Catholic church to perform an exorcism on the house with the help of their young assistant, Drew Thomas (Shannon Kook), and a skeptical, rifle-ready police officer named Brad Hamilton (John Brotherton), no relation to Judge Reinhold's character from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Experienced as the Warrens are, they become more than a source of comfort to this family and mere witnesses to the evil plaguing them, realizing that it has latched itself onto them as well, putting the safety of their own daughter, Judy (Sterling Jerins), in life-threatening jeopardy.

In terms of plot, the Hayes brothers play it straight and simple, without ever playing it the least bit safe. Do they adhere loyally to just about every known tried-and-true cliche in the haunted house and demonic possession handbook? Without a shadow of doubt. Do they subvert the simplicity of their ingredients with a profound underlying exploration of challenging, real-world themes? No, not in particular. They don't have to. That's the beauty of The Conjuring. It knows exactly what type of horror movie it is and embraces it wholeheartedly. It isn't striving for the subtext on grief and motherhood that would characterize future cinematic haunters like The Babadook and Hereditary. The Hayeses seek only to satiate the appetites of horror fans with mainstream comfort food, the big-screen equivalent of a tour through the most extreme haunted house attraction Six Flags could only dream of conjuring. And Wan is just the man to bring the attraction vividly to life. 

However, the script from which he's working distinguishes itself from the competition in one major way: it utilizes the true-life adventures of real people as its framework. Ed and Lorraine Warren are not fictitious ghost hunters, they were two flesh-and-blood human beings who immersed themselves in countless cases of alleged hauntings. Annabelle is not the product of the Hayeses' imagination, but rather a Raggedy Ann doll who was believed to have been used as a conduit by an actual demon. The Perron family was a real family who did contact the Warrens out of fear that their new home was infested with malicious spirits. Now, do I personally believe that any of the supernatural occurrences in this movie genuinely transpired? Hell no! The people are (or were) real. The accusations are real. The objects locked away in the Warrens' museum are real. Everything else, I would say, springs from the writers' youthful devotion to the boundless possibilities of horror and Wan's enjoyment of the camera. This movie is like their own personal candy store, and Wan and the Hayeses are three little boys having the time of their lives running up and down the aisles. The textual insistence that The Conjuring is based on a true story adds an under-taste of realism, but it's not meant to be taken any more seriously than The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (which was inspired by the almost entirely irrelevant story of a deranged old man) or The Amityville Horror (also based on a real-life accusation investigated by the Warrens). As my father has mockingly opined, the only sequence here that probably did occur in real life was that of the characters eating breakfast.

While the Perron family represents the primary target of the demonic activity, the Hayeses allot a fair amount of screen time to them and the Warrens, with Wan intercutting between both families to foreshadow their impending convergence and highlight their parallels. Like the Perrons, Ed and Lorraine share a little girl whom they would do anything in the world to protect, and even she is granted some development. Even though she knows she's forbidden from exploring her parents' storage of supposedly cursed artifacts, sometimes the curiosity overwhelms her ability to know better, and all the time her parents spend away from her to help other families in peril has taken somewhat of a toll. 

For the role of Ed Warren, Wan has selected his leading man from his previous haunted house excursion, Patrick Wilson, who demonstrates growth as an actor in the interim of three years, and for his better half, Vera Farmiga, who gained experience in the horror genre with Joshua and Orphan, two additions to the "evil child" subgenre in which she played a mother gradually losing her grip on reality. Lorraine Warren represents a welcome departure from that somewhat offensive archetype, a loving mother who shares a similar gift to her husband from whom she's emotionally supported, and possesses the skill to peek through the curtain into other people's lives. Together, Wilson and Farmiga are a match made in heaven, exhibiting a tender, lived-in chemistry that bestows a layer of heart and world-weary composure to the otherworldly events corroding the safety and sanity of the brutalized Perrons. Explanatory dialogue that could register as eye-rolling if emanated from the mouths of less invested performers instead is imbued with the gravitas of two people who have been to hell and back more than once in their lifetime. They know the ins and outs of demonology, how to explain it to others in a manner that's coherent and concise, and aren't terribly bothered by the insults leveled at them by skeptics. 

I can't speak to Ed and Lorraine's real-life characters, careers, and motivations (for all I know, they were two of the biggest scam artists in paranormal history), but as depicted onscreen by these horror heavyweights, they are the true ghostbusters: ordinary, unassuming, goodhearted individuals blessed with a supernatural gift which brought them together and they utilize to mend the suffering of those no one else is willing to help or believe. While the rest of the world will turn their backs and accuse you of insanity, Ed and Lorraine are the ones who will listen, comfort, and help. 

However, it's not without a certain degree of risk on their part. In one of the most revealing exchanges in the screenplay, we find out why Ed has become reluctant to allow Lorraine to accompany him on his trips. "Everything Lorraine touches, feels, it helps people, but it also takes a toll on her." During a past exorcism of a farmer, the demon transferred a vision to Lorraine so harrowing and traumatizing she locked herself in her bedroom for eight days, refusing to talk or eat. Ed has never asked what exactly she saw, but the sequel will provide a distressingly logical answer. Come to think of it, Ed and Lorraine are never once shown asking for or accepting payment from their clients. For them, this job isn't about money. All they care about is freeing innocent people and families from the oppressive forces of evil before it's too late, willing to sacrifice their own safety in the process. The love between them is as pure and unrestrained as it is palpable. The warmth with which Wilson and Farmiga enwrap themselves in their arms, the adoration that emanates from their eyes as they stare into each other's. It's heartwarming without ever crossing the line into schmaltz, and it presents the evil with a force much stronger and more indestructible than its hatred.

The primary target of the demon, a witch named Bathsheba Sherman who sacrificed her week-old child in a fireplace and cursed anyone who tried to take her land before hanging herself from a tree branch in the backyard, is Carolyn, the matriarch of the Perron clan played by the future mother of Leatherface, Lili Taylor. Upon her arrival at the accursed land, Taylor portrays Carolyn as the ideal wife and mother. Her naturally sweet, cheerful, maternal warmth evoke Jamie Lee Curtis in the original Halloween. If Laurie Strode hadn't been targeted at 17 by Michael Myers and left permanently traumatized, fell in love, and mothered five daughters, she might have ended up like Carolyn. 

A proudly content housewife, Carolyn lives for the happiness of her family, indifferent to the glamor, or lack thereof, of where she lives. She's the type of cool mom who gives her oldest the space to vent her frustrations, lets her children do what they want and have fun as long as no one's getting hurt, and caves in the second her youngest begs her to play a game her older siblings exclude her from. When Roger is called away for work in Florida, Taylor eases his stress with a supportive, compassionate hug, expressing none of the bitterness of a less understanding spouse. Once large bruises inexplicably manifest on Carolyn's body, Taylor maintains a front of calmness and bravery, staring at her reflection with contained concern as she stoically pops a pill for a misdiagnosed iron deficiency. 

As Bathsheba's influence grows stronger, Taylor undergoes a gradual physical and psychological transformation reminiscent of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, the sunniness and tenderness that characterize her personality draining from her visage, leaving behind a blank stare of pure menace. Her soft, warm voice is hijacked by a demonic laugh, taking pleasure in the pain inflicted on her and those around her. Rather than a separate actress like Mercedes McCambridge supplying her possessed voice, Taylor is permitted to keep her own, amplified with a slight echo. Carolyn's body and soul become the rope in a tug of war, and Taylor oscillates between the desperation of a mother who loves her family more than life itself and wants to regain control, and the sadism of a witch for whom the magic of childbirth is nothing more than a tool to elevate her status in the eyes of Satan.

As Carolyn's equally loving and supportive husband, Roger, Ron Livingston (who made his mark with a brilliantly deadpan portrayal of white-collar suffering in the 1999 satirical comedy, Office Space) is put in somewhat of a disadvantage compared to some of his co-stars. As was the usual for patriarchs in the 1970s, and probably still today for the most part, Roger is the breadwinner of the family. Unlike Livingston's aforementioned previous protagonist, Peter Gibbons, Roger is a blue-collar worker, tethered to a job about which he's not overwhelmingly passionate, that doesn't pay well, and necessitates him to leave his family for indefinite periods at a time. The second his boss rings, he's out the door, uncertain when he'll return. Like Carolyn, Roger will do anything for his family, no questions asked. 

On the flip side, Livingston is saddled with a character who isn't personally targeted by Bathsheba. Therefore, when his wife and daughters are being assaulted in the middle of the night, Roger is frequently nowhere to be seen, returns home just in time to hear them screaming their heads off, and demands, "Somebody, goddammit, tell me what's going on here!" It's somewhat of a thankless role: the odd man out. While his loved ones are being locked in the cellar, pounced on from above their wardrobe, or verbally threatened in the dark, Roger is powerless to do, see, or hear anything. Nevertheless, credit is to be paid to Livingston for conveying the necessary concern for his family's welfare and a commendable willingness to listen and believe in the prospect of an afterlife. The only time the strength of his understated performance somewhat sags is during the emotional climax. When he's called to fight for his wife's deteriorating soul via begging her to summon the inner strength to overcome Bathsheba's influence, Livingston's delivery is a tad weak, as though hesitant to really strip himself emotionally raw (an understandable discomfort for many men, both on- and off-camera).

Despite the relatively indistinguishable personalities of the five Perron daughters, there is one who stands out on account of the actress embodying her, and that is the amazing Joey King. Before she played middle-child Christine, King was the infected little girl in the Americanized 2008 remake of Quarantine. Since The Conjuring, she has starred in at least two more horror movies (not counting The Lie, which I haven't seen and am not fully convinced is horror): Wish Upon, an atrocious variation on "The Monkey's Paw" in which King's star turn was the solo saving grace, and Slender Man, an even worse disaster in which, yet again, despite not being the lead this time, King was the best thing it had going for it. Safe to say, at this point, I'm a fan of Joey King. She's a bona fide modern-day scream queen in need of a leading role in a great horror film. Thus far, Christine Perron is the best role she's won, serving as a showcase for her singular talent in the horror genre.

It practically goes without saying her crowning moment in The Conjuring is the bedroom scene in which Christine is woken from her sleep by Bathsheba's sadistic tug. At the tender age of 12, King effortlessly projects the paralyzing fear of a real preteen, her eyes welling with tears, whisperingly whimpering her older sister's name as she keeps her slowly widening eyes pinned on the ajar bedroom door, the blackness behind it seeming to hide a bone-chilling presence only she can sense. Once the door slams shut, serving as the guillotine finally being dropped after an excruciating period of waiting, King erupts in an ear-piercing scream that rings with unrehearsed authenticity. Her voice trembles with desperation to be believed as she explains her experience to her family, ultimately breaking down in the comforting arms of her father. This sequence alone solidified King as one of the best young genre talents of her generation.

When the supernatural occurrences commence, the Perron family is trapped in a state of oppression, feeling utterly helpless and alone in their predicament. Once the Warrens, along with Drew and Brad, enmesh themselves in their nightmare, setting up cameras and bells around the home to capture any evidence of paranormal phenomena, Wan allows an oasis of serenity amid the relentless supernatural horror. One of my favorite scenes captures all the characters gathered around the kitchen table one morning eating pancakes. After several restless nights of being kept awake and terrorized, right now, in this brief moment of camaraderie, the Perrons are finally enabled to take a breath, converse happily with one another, crack a smile, and feel like a normal family again. "The house hasn't felt like this in a long time," Carolyn says to Ed and Lorraine. "I think the kids feel a lot safer with you here." Likewise, the good-natured banter between Drew and Brad, with the former teasing the latter for his stubborn refusal to admit to the existence of otherworldly spirits, adds a touch of lighthearted comic relief that never threatens to undermine the seriousness of their situation. 

For all the pathos and humanity the actors inject into the proceedings, it's ultimately the technical prowess of James Wan and his collaborators that reigns supreme. Before his head got too big for his capabilities and he made the misguided advancement to directing (two of his credits belong to this movie's below-average spinoff, Annabelle, and the aforementioned Wish Upon), John R. Leonetti performed the role he was born for: cinematographer. His work in The Conjuring is nothing short of majestic, capturing the bleakness, isolation, and unadorned lusciousness of the farmhouse and its surrounding countryside. He uses tracking shots to follow his characters throughout the home, essentially taking on the role of the invisible demon tracking this family's every move, skulking outside their bedroom doors, waiting for the right time to pounce. His camera zooms in on and away from the frontal exterior, the latter tactic of which is employed to tearfully chilling effect at the end of one particularly violent nighttime attack. Regarding the forbidding interior, Leonetti treats us to a tour of every last inch, taking in the most seemingly mundane details like a static TV, elongated staircase, and portraits of the Perron girls hung alongside the adjacent wall. For King's show-stopping bedroom attack, Leonetti immerses us in her petrified perspective. When she peeks beneath her bed, he flips the camera upside down to mimic her movement. When she sits back up, the camera loyally follows suit. As the Perrons arrive on their new property, the camera zooms in on a window, like a ghost catching sight of their newest batch of invaders. In the night, a shroud of gothic fog slightly obscures the building. In the relief of daytime, the frame is painted in hues of gray and tree-green. 

Streaks of sunlight penetrate the darkness of the Warrens' storage room, visually contrasting the benevolence of the couple who created it with the malice of the objects stored within. Wan maximizes the power of negative space, emphasizing a wall of blackness behind an ajar door to suggest the presence of a sadistic spirit without showing it up-close. Some of the most spine-chilling set pieces in The Conjuring take place in the dark, reigniting our shared, universal fear thereof, and it's only through the flicker of a match or the blue flashes of lightning that we're granted a less-than-reassuring reprieve. 

Possibly even more impressive and foreboding than the cinematography is the production design by Julie Berghoff, especially as pertains to the cellar in the Perrons' farmhouse. While the upstairs, untidy with boxes as it may be, is a beacon of light with the rambunctious energy and bright faces of the daughters, the downstairs is a maze of darkness designed for the Devil himself. It's dingy with creaky wooden stairs, infested with disgusting cobwebs that expose the home's age. At the base is an old piano whose keys still produce resonant sounds, a wooden chair, and pieces of furniture draped in bed sheets. Dangling from the ceiling is a single light bulb with a tendency to burn out at the most inopportune times. On the outside, a mass of trees encircle the house. Leaves lie strewn across the ground to suggest the normally tranquil atmosphere of fall. The monstrous tree with a protruding branch, perfect for hanging, rests outback directly above a dock facing a beautiful pond, an amalgamation of the serene and the corrupted.

Wan exploits the imagination-rich power of sound to masterful effect, relying on the most no-brainer aural methods afforded by haunted house horror to pull his audience to the edge of their seat. When we hear the creak of the basement door slowly opening before suddenly slamming shut, we're not thinking about the invisible strings creating the basic movements. At times, these methods are engineered to provoke chuckles of relief just as much as a jump scare, such as when Officer Brad emerges from the bathroom asking nervous onlookers, "What? I had to go." A pair of doors bang against each other every night in a pattern of three, cleverly revealed to be an insult to the Holy Trinity as opposed to a mere method for waking the inhabitants. Wan punctuates extended moments of nearly excruciating silence with expertly timed jump scares and grotesque visual reveals, like the gasp of a terrified child followed by the close-up of a smiling Bathsheba hiding on top of a wardrobe. However, he's careful never to overdo this tactic, sometimes refraining from releasing the tension of a suspenseful moment, forcing us instead to bathe in the ambience of discomfiture. Neither does he overexert himself with elaborate special effects, a netherworld of multiple demonic figures, or graphic displays of viscera, basking in the cost-effective and evocative magic of wind chimes tinkling in the breeze, a pair of hands clapping twice, the innocent giggles of children in the darkness, the bullying roar of thunder, and the deceptively peaceful, hypnotic lullaby on a music box, building anticipation for the reflection of a ghostly boy who may or may not reveal himself standing behind you. 

Returning from his stint on Insidious, Joseph Bishara (who pulls double duty as the composer and portrayer of Bathsheba Sherman) augments the soundscape with one of the greatest musical scores in modern horror history, standing confidently alongside Disasterpeace's Carpenter-inspired synth theme for It Follows. It's eerie, deep-toned, and resembles the groan of a whale, featuring a chorus singing a demonic wail a cappella. Wan uses it to commence his movie, priming us for an otherworldly nightmare before a single image is shown or line is heard, and only to accompany the most violent set pieces where its inclusion is tonally appropriate. To accentuate the sentimental side of the equation, Bishara composes a heartfelt orchestral melody for the tenderhearted scenes of Ed and Lorraine professing their mutual love or the Perron family enveloping themselves in a triumphant group hug. 

Wan infuses and vitalizes the gloomy atmosphere with an unmistakable exuberance that makes The Conjuring every bit as fun and exciting as it is nerve-racking and enervating. It's an ambitious tonal juggling act, but he masters it with flying colors, maximizing the game efforts of a wholly committed cast in the bargain. Every actor in this movie is physically required to participate in the action. No one is permitted to be a bystander, whether that means running throughout the house, up and down the stairs, in and out the front door, or stabbing through the kitchen floorboard with a fireplace poker in search of a loved one, or struggling to grab hold of someone being thrown across a room like a ragdoll. Even Kook plays a more proactive role in the climax than initially expected. In contrast to the energetic teamwork scenes, the late-night hauntings and ghostly encounters are paced slowly and with discipline to conjure and sustain a sensation of apprehension. Typically, that manifests in characters walking slowly to investigate a series of bizarre sounds or, in a more derivative sequence modeled after the suicidal battered wife ghost in The Sixth Sense, the sight of a maid displaying slit wrists. Editor Kirk Morri knows when to cut, however, never allowing an investigative scene to drag on past the point of effective tension building and into the realm of tedious self-indulgence. 

The centerpiece of The Conjuring is naturally the climactic exorcism during which the Warrens and Roger, with some ineffectual but well-intentioned assistance from Brad, engage in a confrontation with Bathsheba for the soul of Carolyn. While undoubtedly more hectic and bloody than that of The Exorcist, this climax is every bit as terrifying, smartly prolonged, and emotionally taxing. As if there could've been a more poetic setting, the Hayeses return us to the spidery bowels of the farmhouse's cellar for a classic showdown between the forces of good and evil. A lot of previously seen props are utilized here, such as the chair, bed sheets, and conveniently placed ropes. The lighting is stubbornly dim, making it occasionally difficult to discern every detail in the frame, but not to the extent of obscuring any crucial information. Morri cuts chaotically between an animalistic Carolyn throwing the (comparative) weakling men around the room and those men, along with Lorraine, struggling to gain control over her and tie her down. He makes perfect use of reaction shots, cutting to the horrified expressions of the onlookers, including Ed, who has clearly never seen anything quite like this before. 

Wan uses this confrontation as an excuse to finally indulge in the flesh-tearing gore that characterized his genesis in filmmaking, with painful red blisters manifesting at once on Carolyn's arms and face, threatening to kill her if she leaves the house, a nice-sized bite taken out of Brad's lower cheek, and a regurgitation of blood to confirm the conclusion of the possession. It's exhausting in the cathartic manner of a rollercoaster, and just as relentless in its intensity, with no piece-of-cake resolution anywhere in sight. When the expected happy ending does arrive, it's entirely earned. The victims, especially Carolyn and her daughters, have been shredded through a physical and mental meat grinder, and it's a relief to see them emerge into the sunlight, forever scarred but blessed with the unmatchable beauty of life. Wan uses light to symbolize redemption, shining a blinding ray on Taylor's mangled face as the inherent maternal love within Carolyn triumphs over the satanic soullessness of Bathsheba.

Despite her appearance often being withheld or offered in tantalizing glimpses (the side of her face exposed by the tearing of a bed sheet, for example), Bathsheba Sherman is a terrifying villain, a woman who was so evil in her human lifetime that she sacrificed her own child to demonstrate her psychotic devotion to Satan, exploiting her God-given gift as the ultimate offense against Him. Joseph Bishara inhabits her decayed skin like he was born for it, utterly burying his masculine features beneath her stringy gray hair and white nightgown, his mouth smeared with blood. Only when Ed screams her name does the face of Bathsheba become momentarily visible. The combination of makeup and CGI seamlessly distort Taylor's sunny visage into a ghoulish mask of witchy terror: pale and veiny, her lips dripping with blood, and her eyes glowing a yellowish tint. 

The haunted house and demonic possession subgenres have been around since the dawn of horror cinema, and it's no mystery as to why their specter continues to infest many of the movies we have today. After all, what's more terrifying and violating than finding yourself at the mercy of sadistic spirits, invisible to the naked eye, within the supposed comfort of your own home? The only thing I can think of is having your actual body taken over by said spirits, stripped of your autonomy, staring at your reflection in the mirror and not recognizing the person staring back, holding a bladed weapon to the neck of your own child and failing to realize it. Working from a brilliantly ambitious script by two brothers evidently well versed in the tricks of the trade of horror, James Wan has created an unnerving marriage of bump-in-the-night thrills and gruesome bodily mutation that masterfully threads the needle between hardcore intensity and heartwarming, family-oriented fun. 

Thanks to a uniformly committed cast, exuberant direction, bleakly beautiful cinematography, a forbiddingly well-rendered setting, spine-chilling sound design, a succession of patiently paced jump scares, and one of the most sinister orchestral scores in modern horror history, The Conjuring is the best demonic possession film since The Exorcist and quite possibly the greatest haunted house excursion ever made. When it comes to capturing the irrational, hopeless sensation of a nightmare and validating our collective fear of the dark, Wan's is a name to, you know I've got to say it, conjure with.

8.2/10