History should praise James Wan’s gifts to the horror genre. The man has created 3 different franchises: Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring (while also taking time to direct a Fast and Furious movie, just amazing!). Of the 3 franchises, The Conjuring should have the longest legs because of the strong foundation. Anchoring the film around Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) Warren, The Conjuring 2 comes close to capturing the strength of the original, the scariest film I had seen in years. The strength of the sequel confirms two things: 1) That this franchise formula works and 2) James Wan is the new horror master working today.
The Warrens “case of the week” in The Conjuring 2 resides in England: the Hodgson family, specifically 2nd oldest Janet (Madison Wolfe). Raised by single mom Peggy (Frances O’Connor), Janet and her 3 other siblings live stingily but lovingly in the British projects, barely making ends meet. Their life gets upheaved by a demon that puppeteers young Janet, forcing the Warrens to come as consultants of the Catholic church. Ed really wants to dive in and help this poor family, but Lorraine is more wary due to the last paranormal assignment leaving her mental scars.
The Conjuring’s best gimmick is the lovable Warrens. By making the center of the movie an investigative couple who actively search out spirits and confront them, the justification section of the movie is rendered inconsequential. While most characters shouldn’t go into the flooded basement, or sit in the creepy chair, the Warrens jump right in, relying on their faith and experience to get them out of trouble. This leaves the extra time to be used for character building, which can only benefit the story and give real stakes to the scares. This family starts the movie broken: Janet and Peggy are broken from the loss of their father, as well as the rest of their family; the youngest, Billy (Benjamin Haigh) has even developed a lisp as a result. The Warren’s then come in and encourage this family to stand up to the villain by sticking together while they go in and deal with it. These between-scares scenes help give dimensions to each individual character and give meaning to the inevitable third act standoff, making the fate of the family as important as the fate of the Warrens. With the exception of a missed opportunity in the final frames (I wish the family played more of a role in the action), the Conjuring 2 succeeds where other horror movies fail by building up the audience relationship with this family so you care when the scares come.
And that’s Wan’s other great strength: generating a scare. The director is kind of amazing at extracting yelps in many different ways. The jump scares that happen are infrequently timed, so you have no idea when one’s gonna come, if it ever does in the scene. Shading and shadows are used to great effect, with Wan usually slowly manipulating the light to slow-motion tense us to death. The requisite creepy children’s toys show up too, as well as just creepy children. Wan also unleashes a couple new techniques I never thought of. One is an out-of-focus interview with someone/something who is shapeshifting in creepy ways (letting us use our imagination), and undercutting a scare with humor, usually from the Warrens. The humor one is brilliant, since it puts us into a temporary comfort only to be more scared the next scene. Wan directs in so much tension and creepy atmosphere that you feel as exhausted as the sleepless characters do sometimes.
Wan also has a knack for casting. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are a great center of actors to build a franchise around. Wilson is charming and wise, using his natural everyman likability (and sideburns) to great effect. Farmiga is even better, emotionally carrying the story single handedly. Madison Wolfe can join the annals of great kids in horror movies, playing someone in constant fear or paranormal control, but playing her as a kid, who’s just super scared and sad. Frances O’Connor is also terrific as Wolfe’s mother, trying and failing to keep her child safe. Simon McBurney also gets to be a strong voice of reason for the family before the Warrens arrive, and he even gets a nice emotional beat: a rarity for a horror film. Lauren Esposito, Benjamin Haigh, and Patrick McAuley are also solid playing Janet’s siblings.
I know the faith based audience has the God’s Not Dead movies, but perhaps I could convince you to adopt The Conjuring series? Think about it: the couple at the center of the series is VERY religious. In fact, they use their religion and faith to help save innocent families from various devils. And they help convince families to believe in each other to help make each other better and stronger people. Come on, let’s convince the producers to make a bunch of these!!