THE CONJURING is one of those very rare horror films that is genuinely frightening from beginning to end, and a solidly constructed well-made film to boot with great performances all around. I am a horror-hound, and have been since I was an impressionable ten-year old staying up late to watch classic Universal movie monsters on a Friday night. Scares were fairly easy to come by when I was young, but not so much as I became older and more jaded. Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees no longer scare me as they once did, but supernatural horror - when done right - can provide me with those same thrills for which I am a life-long confirmed junkie, which explains why THE EXORCIST has remained as disturbing to me as the first time I watched it. Modern horror has become too hip, too self referential, and too self conscious to be genuinely scary. Filmmakers today are more concerned with being clever than with delivering the goods. Now - dont misunderstand me - I dearly loved THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, and appreciate a good meta commentary on horror as any film fan, but these films are seldom actually frightening. This too cool for school attitude also keeps modern filmmakers from indulging in the classic good versus evil tropes that made horror films of yesterday so effective and enduring. No one seems to have much problem with admitting the existence of the devil for the purposes of inducing scares with their film, but few contemporary filmmakers will concede the existence of God - even for purely dramatic purposes, presumably for fear of appearing too quaint, folksy, or schmaltzy. Religion or belief in a higher power is not a prerequisite for the writer or director. Dont forget that a self-proclaimed atheist, William Friedkin made THE EXORCIST - the ultimate in good versus evil horror films, although Friedkin did add a more humanistic bent to the story that what was written by author William Peter Blatty who - it bears mentioning - IS a believer. To build a story around the existence of pure evil or the devil, though, without also invoking the existence of pure good or God, is a cop out. Without God (speaking purely in a thematic sense), the scales just dont balance. Whether or not you are a believer, there is something very natural and satisfying dramatically about the two moral extremes and deities who represent each, with mankind being the fulcrum in the middle. If your story involves the struggle between good and evil, then man cannot proxy for good. Man is always a combination of both good and evil, thus the dramatic conflict. THE CONJURING (supposedly based on a true story; whether true or not, it adds to the storys effectiveness) has no issue with acknowledging the existence of good and evil, God and the devil, and the classic eternal struggle between both for soul of mankind. If you are so jaded and inured to such ideas, even for the purpose of entertainment, that you cannot indulge in these ideologies for a couple of hours, then you probably will find little value in a film like THE CONJURING. Your own cynicism will rob you of any possible enjoyment from the film. As for me, the chills started early in the film and did not let up for more than five minutes at a time. I was transported back to those unassuming days as a kid where anything at all could happen at any time in a horror film, and I sat uncomfortably on the edge of my seat expecting the unexpected. If you are looking for quality scares this Halloween weekend, then you could do far worse than turning off the lights and spending a couple of hours with THE CONJURING.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 02:33:55 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015