I will never see Saw. I make that clear in blog posts from time to time when I find it relevant. Oddly, that's often proven to be the case, lately -- but what can you do. For this particular entry, it's relevant because James Wan, the gifted director behind The Conjuring and Insidious started it all of with a little film called Saw ... which -- by all reports -- did kind of well and may have had a feature or two -- oh yeah, and those saws aren't for the chains, Cary Elwes, they're for your ankles. So it's a no.
Horrible cruelty and extreme violence of an Eli Roth shock value nature hold no interest for me -- despite the morality play that might be bubbling beneath the surface. In short, I never need to know how you got that key out from behind your eye.
But with Insidious and now The Conjuring, James Wan's focus has been far more on the supernatural than it has been on grit, guts, and gore. September 13 -- Friday the 13th -- shall mark the release of Insidious 2. While I wonder how far one can go with that plot line -- or how there's even a sequel with the full cast (except one wrung neck) considering how the first installment ended -- the fact that it's now a franchise should come as no surprise. While the film industry has been polarizing into enormous 3-D spectacles and little tiny art house pics hoping for an iTunes release -- horror has held as a form with low budgets and high grosses. The phenomenon of Paranormal Activity is a sure bet; it's full budget is less than a day of catering on a Downey, Jr. movie -- why not just do it? Profits rolling in at the 1000 to 10,000 % levels doesn't hurt either. James Wan has made the wise decision to keep his films cheap and to keep them raking in dough -- and they're drawing in audiences because the stories are strong and compelling -- and the mythologies are freakishly believable.
I'm not going to sit here and ruin the plot of Insidious for you -- I want you to Netflix stream that sucker for yourself. But I will say this -- for a while there you have absolutely no idea what is going on and you are completely freaked out. And then these paranormal experts arrive, lay down the "facts" about what's up in the Rose Byrne/Patrick Wilson house -- and you buy it. Throw on a tape recorder, some weird head peace, and a couple of flashbulbs -- and yes, with a tiny bit of explanation, I am absolutely willing to believe there are ghosts all over the room and that we're all in terrible danger.
That story aspect is the cornerstone of Wan's latest -- The Conjuring. Based on the true events that took place at the house visited by demonologists before heading to exorcise that charming little Dutch Colonial on Long Island. Here, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga (who I think is doing some of her best work) are a married couple that travel around to investigate paranormal activity and hopefully bring peace to the victims thereof. And they have quite a track record. Wilson is the only non-ordained man the Catholic Church lets assess folks for exorcisms (though he's not permitted to perform them -- you need a trusty Jesuit for that) and Farmiga is a clairvoyant who can tap into the energy of the location -- the evil that took place, the spirits that are at unrest. In short -- they're a great team.
And this time, rather than making the investigator a truly secondary set of characters, Wan had the brilliant idea to split the movie nearly in two -- Lily Taylor, Ron Livingston, and their daughters living in their newly purchased haunted house -- and Wilson and Farmiga -- ghost hunters. The film bounces back and forth between the two parties before colliding them when Taylor is at her most desperate.
Unlike Mama -- or so many other horror films that have come out the past year -- which try to whip up some insane ghost explanation for why the place you're dealing with is so damn terrible -- why the spirits are at unrest -- why you're in extreme danger -- Wan keeps it simple. Want to know why this place is bad? Here's the explanation. Want the clairvoyant to see some creepy stuff? No problem. Want Lily Taylor to play the worst game of hide and seek in years? Done deal. We, as the audience, sit there screaming "Get out! Get out! Get out!" "I don't care that you have a mortgage!" "Get a hotel room!" Of course, the brilliance of an exorcism film is that it's no so much a question of you getting out of the house -- as it's a question of whatever's in the house getting inside of you.
Of course... by the time you realize that... you're too late. And that's just great for us!
It behooves me to speak briefly about the criticism The Conjuring will more than likely receive for the exorcism portions. Folks are immediately going to throw it up against the William Friedkin for comparison. I believe that we're going to have to say as a society that this is simply unfair. We can rent out the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, have Billy Friedkin come down there, and crown him the king of all things possession. It's true -- there's nothing that film did that any other film about possession has ever done better. And the awful thing for all predecessors is it seems what happened in the 1973 Ellen Burstyn masterpiece was everything on the menu: mumbled Latin, crazy vomit, crucifixes trying to push their way out from inside your gut. You know... Exorcism 101. What I can say about The Conjuring is that it made some excellent selections from the menu and the presentation was superb.
And now it behooves me to speak of Lily Taylor -- most famous for films like Dogfight, Say Anything, and Mystic Pizza. I'm sure there are those who also adored her in "Six Feet Under" or my personal favorite Taylor role, I Shot Andy Warhol. When it comes to horror, Ms. Taylor was unfortunate enough to be in The Haunting -- a film whose cast had a great pedigree and whose plot was simply lousy. It's a bad movie. So bad that it caused folks to skip the Geoffrey Rush remake of House on Haunted Hill -- the far superior of the two. Here, in The Conjuring, Lily Taylor is exceptional. Let me begin by saying how damn good she looks at the start of the film. Whatever she's eating, however she's exercising -- I'd like to know. Of course one wants one's lead to look particularly good at the start when one plans to drag them and their children through hell. And Lily Taylor does a hell of a job taking that journey. I don't know who else would be able to do this role -- and it's the triangle of Wilson, Farmiga, and Taylor that hold this picture together and elevate it above your average horror.
I suggest going during the day -- so you can exit during sunlight and make it back to your homes safely -- but then again, doing something like that might just show the spirits you're weak and make your soul all the more easily stolen.
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