october movies: the conjuring
Whoops, sorry internet, I'm terrible at memeing.
My boss is finally on vacation and it's as glorious as I imagined. Although I've not been doing nearly enough writing, mostly I've been on tumblr. I think I'm going to close tumblr for most of today, however, and focus on words. I need to get my butt moving on the married ghosthunters.
Hm, I just got an idea for that story, but I wonder if it's not too meta/scifi for a horror story. I may have to immediately email pearl_o and ask.
Okay, sent. We'll see how she feels about that. Maybe I will ask some other people too. I know a couple other people who are both XMFC and horror folks.
Anyway, the point is, I need to get my butt moving, so I watched The Conjuring last night. The digital release came out this week, so I bought it because I can't wait two weeks for my blu-ray to ship. It was 100000% worth it.
This entry turned into a review, so I'm going to own it. I'll write up Mama soon.
The Conjuring, 2013 - w. Chad and Carey Hayes; d. James Wan
Streaming on Amazon; dvd/blu-ray out October 22
General Plot: The Perron family--Roger, Carolyn, and their five daughters--have moved to an old farmhouse in the secluded woods of Rhode Island. It's not long before strange things start happening--their dog is murdered, strange noises wake them at night, all the clocks stop at 3:07, the girls report seeing entities in the house, and Carolyn wakes each day covered in more mysterious bruises.
The Perrons contact paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for help. As soon as they arrive, they sense the evil within the house and know that they need to act quickly in order to stop it before it infests their lives as well.
It was really interesting, watching it for the third time, actually. The first time I saw it, I spent the entire movie completely tense, waiting for it to be "ruined" by my least favorite tropes. Since that never happened, I was able to spend my second viewing appreciating the bits of the movie I missed and enjoying the scares and interactions and setting and music in a way I was distracted from by my anxiety the first time through.
This third time, I was much more drawn into the characters and the strength of the narrative and all the reasons it makes perfect sense for this movie to hit all my buttons. There are ~16 speaking roles in the movie. Eleven of them are women and five of them are men. There are more than twice as many women as men in this movie. The two marriages at the heart of the story are both respectful and built on mutual trust and admiration. When Ed gets nervous about Lorraine doing her psychic thing, she immediately shuts him down and reminds him they're in it together. When the Carolyn and the girls start losing their shit over the weird things happening in the house, Roger immediately helps track down Ed in Lorraine, despite his later admission to Ed that he doesn't believe in ghosts/demons.
And, though Ed is the one running the exorcism when they start the final confrontation, it's really Lorraine's influence and persuasion and Carolyn's will and love that save the day and expel the demon. The main messages of the film are all about the power of love and family, motherhood in particular. The demon obviously has connection to mothers and motherhood, and a very powerful one. It attempts to use that connection against both Lorraine and Carolyn, but both are able to overcome it through the strength of their love for their families. Lorraine's premonitions regarding Judy probably save her life and it's the memory of the perfect day with her family that gives Carolyn the strength to get rid of the demon.
That's not even mentioning how Lorraine seems to generally be calling the shots and is the one who keeps coming up with inventive solutions to their problems. Not to say that Ed isn't sharp, but, despite the tenseness of the moment, when the ghost is pulling Nancy around by her hair and the guys are helplessly chasing her, I actually laughed when Lorraine appears with scissors and cuts the hair. Four for you, Lorraine.
And, as this has turned into a horror movie review, I suppose I should talk about the creep factor. I tend to be a traditional horror sort of gal--excessive gore and torture and blood generally makes me wince or roll my eyes. I don't find it scary unless it's paired with something scary. Like, Saw, Hostel, that whole torture porn genre? Not interesting to me in the least. Just...gross, you know? I say all this because I've seen a lot of people complaining because it was "PG-13 horror." I LOVED it for that reason. It is 100% absolutely scary. There are lots of places that I genuinely jumped all three times I've seen the film. It's creepy and atmospheric and unsettling and the perfect movie to complement a grey, eerie day. No blood, no gore, no torture. It's all the setting and the use of noise and jump scares and light and the framing of shots.
The acting is great-there is genuine affection between the couples and all the kid actors are spot on at both playing convincing terrified children and at playing siblings. They had great chemistry as a family. The music and sound are also excellent. I loved the song choices and the score and the sound effects. They all increased the tension in the movie. There were a couple great places where the action is highlighted by the score abruptly stopping, which I loved. There are a few scenes that are a little dark, lighting wise. I didn’t have a problem in the theatre, but in my living room they were hard to make out. I futzed with my teevee settings to make it better, but I was disappointed, especially after the excellent lighting in the movie last weekend. Still, that’s like, a drop of disappointment in the sea of my love for this film.
In conclusion: I love this movie. I think, objectively, it a really amazing movie that harkens back to the classic haunted house movie, filled with great scares. Subjectively, it's like someone climbed into my brain, brought out the horror movie of my heart, and made it into a real thing. Absolutely worth the outrageous amount of money I have already spent on it (twice in theatres + digital copy + blu-ray). I can't wait for the sequel! :D
My boss is finally on vacation and it's as glorious as I imagined. Although I've not been doing nearly enough writing, mostly I've been on tumblr. I think I'm going to close tumblr for most of today, however, and focus on words. I need to get my butt moving on the married ghosthunters.
Hm, I just got an idea for that story, but I wonder if it's not too meta/scifi for a horror story. I may have to immediately email pearl_o and ask.
Okay, sent. We'll see how she feels about that. Maybe I will ask some other people too. I know a couple other people who are both XMFC and horror folks.
Anyway, the point is, I need to get my butt moving, so I watched The Conjuring last night. The digital release came out this week, so I bought it because I can't wait two weeks for my blu-ray to ship. It was 100000% worth it.
This entry turned into a review, so I'm going to own it. I'll write up Mama soon.
The Conjuring, 2013 - w. Chad and Carey Hayes; d. James Wan
Streaming on Amazon; dvd/blu-ray out October 22
General Plot: The Perron family--Roger, Carolyn, and their five daughters--have moved to an old farmhouse in the secluded woods of Rhode Island. It's not long before strange things start happening--their dog is murdered, strange noises wake them at night, all the clocks stop at 3:07, the girls report seeing entities in the house, and Carolyn wakes each day covered in more mysterious bruises.
The Perrons contact paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for help. As soon as they arrive, they sense the evil within the house and know that they need to act quickly in order to stop it before it infests their lives as well.
It was really interesting, watching it for the third time, actually. The first time I saw it, I spent the entire movie completely tense, waiting for it to be "ruined" by my least favorite tropes. Since that never happened, I was able to spend my second viewing appreciating the bits of the movie I missed and enjoying the scares and interactions and setting and music in a way I was distracted from by my anxiety the first time through.
This third time, I was much more drawn into the characters and the strength of the narrative and all the reasons it makes perfect sense for this movie to hit all my buttons. There are ~16 speaking roles in the movie. Eleven of them are women and five of them are men. There are more than twice as many women as men in this movie. The two marriages at the heart of the story are both respectful and built on mutual trust and admiration. When Ed gets nervous about Lorraine doing her psychic thing, she immediately shuts him down and reminds him they're in it together. When the Carolyn and the girls start losing their shit over the weird things happening in the house, Roger immediately helps track down Ed in Lorraine, despite his later admission to Ed that he doesn't believe in ghosts/demons.
And, though Ed is the one running the exorcism when they start the final confrontation, it's really Lorraine's influence and persuasion and Carolyn's will and love that save the day and expel the demon. The main messages of the film are all about the power of love and family, motherhood in particular. The demon obviously has connection to mothers and motherhood, and a very powerful one. It attempts to use that connection against both Lorraine and Carolyn, but both are able to overcome it through the strength of their love for their families. Lorraine's premonitions regarding Judy probably save her life and it's the memory of the perfect day with her family that gives Carolyn the strength to get rid of the demon.
That's not even mentioning how Lorraine seems to generally be calling the shots and is the one who keeps coming up with inventive solutions to their problems. Not to say that Ed isn't sharp, but, despite the tenseness of the moment, when the ghost is pulling Nancy around by her hair and the guys are helplessly chasing her, I actually laughed when Lorraine appears with scissors and cuts the hair. Four for you, Lorraine.
And, as this has turned into a horror movie review, I suppose I should talk about the creep factor. I tend to be a traditional horror sort of gal--excessive gore and torture and blood generally makes me wince or roll my eyes. I don't find it scary unless it's paired with something scary. Like, Saw, Hostel, that whole torture porn genre? Not interesting to me in the least. Just...gross, you know? I say all this because I've seen a lot of people complaining because it was "PG-13 horror." I LOVED it for that reason. It is 100% absolutely scary. There are lots of places that I genuinely jumped all three times I've seen the film. It's creepy and atmospheric and unsettling and the perfect movie to complement a grey, eerie day. No blood, no gore, no torture. It's all the setting and the use of noise and jump scares and light and the framing of shots.
The acting is great-there is genuine affection between the couples and all the kid actors are spot on at both playing convincing terrified children and at playing siblings. They had great chemistry as a family. The music and sound are also excellent. I loved the song choices and the score and the sound effects. They all increased the tension in the movie. There were a couple great places where the action is highlighted by the score abruptly stopping, which I loved. There are a few scenes that are a little dark, lighting wise. I didn’t have a problem in the theatre, but in my living room they were hard to make out. I futzed with my teevee settings to make it better, but I was disappointed, especially after the excellent lighting in the movie last weekend. Still, that’s like, a drop of disappointment in the sea of my love for this film.
In conclusion: I love this movie. I think, objectively, it a really amazing movie that harkens back to the classic haunted house movie, filled with great scares. Subjectively, it's like someone climbed into my brain, brought out the horror movie of my heart, and made it into a real thing. Absolutely worth the outrageous amount of money I have already spent on it (twice in theatres + digital copy + blu-ray). I can't wait for the sequel! :D