The Conjuring review

Director- James Wan
Running time- 112 minutes
Certificate- 15



There is so little originality in The Conjuring it should not be as good as it is. Everything that is so cliched about ghost film's is included, from the deserted farm house in the middle of nowhere, doors creaking open with no one there, secret basement, scary ghost children etc etc. But the film's saving grace is the brilliant cinematography and performances of the cast.

Based on a true story, paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are asked for help to help the Perron family, because after a few unexplainable incidents, they believe their home is haunted. The impressive opening credits and introduction showcase some of the film's effectiveness that follows throughout the rest of the film.

The director James Wan clearly loves the art of film making, as the audience we're always given a voyeuristic view of what is happening on screen. Camera shots are long and drawn out, and very rarely cut away in a matter of seconds like most ghost films's. I was drawn into the film throughout, unlike most other horror films, not once did I feel like like I was on the outside looking in. While many of the film's tricks are have been seen in other ghost films, the end result was never predictable. The film succeeds because the tension is genuinely scary between the moments of higher music and the eventual climax of each scene where the character's are in distress.

The cast is perfect, particularly impressive is Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren, and Joey King as Christine Perron. Because of the way the film has been shot and edited, it could have easily fallen on its own feet, but the terror comes through in each character in their own and individual moments in the film. Even the house the film is predominantly set in feels like a character itself, rather than just a backdrop.

Like so many ghost films, It's in the last third that the film falls a little wayward. because so much of the subtlety suddenly becomes rushed and chaotic, the sound effects become too loud, the cliches become unimaginative and forced. Think thunderstorms outside a secluded house with one person alone, someone possessed, someone being dragged and thrown along walls and floors. Those moments of tension are now replaced with predictable and laughable set pieces. Audiences certainly laughed in the auditorium I was in.

The film ends with the prospect of a sequel, which has now officially been confirmed due to the deserved success of this one. Let's just hope it matches the quality of the first.

Verdict-3.5/5

There's a reason why Dan Brown sells so many books...

Reading and writing should be for everybody and anybody, we thankfully don't live in times when it was only academics and journalists who were the only ones who did so. But this still has not stopped a sense of superiority of literature critics and English professors who still pride themselves on the old classics, most well educated people hate culture unless it is high culture, and considered 'Art'. Two weeks ago Clive James wrote a scathing attack on Dan Brown's work in the i Newspaper, 'calling it pretentious' among other other things. The column was mot without some merit, and at times quite funny. But I sensed a feeling of envy and intellectual arrogance in his piece.

What intellectual snobs and academics forget, is that most fiction books are now written for a variety of different people, including those that write them. Now of course certain books have more literaturey merit than others, the same way music has more artistic merit than others. The difference with writing a book compared with music is that for the most part a book is an individual piece of work, it's more personal, compared with popular culture music, of which I mostly detest, and of which I am completely snobby about. Of course old classics such as The Colour purple and Lord of the flies should be studied in schools rather than something like Twilight.

But like the Twilight series, Dan Brown's books have a large audience because they are both accessible, readable, and have story's which are engaging. In Dan Brown's case, the books are focused on a central topic, his chapters are short and tightly fitted together, it's easy to see why they have been turned into films. The language itself, the prose, the style is by no means perfect at all, and some of the imagery used to describe situations can be laughable, particularly to those who are hardened readers, and the artsy fartsy literature academics.

But where Dan Brown succeeds, and where all authors have to succeed in, and if they want there books to be read all the way through, is that they have to ultimately be interesting. The narrative and characters have to keep the reader involved, and in the (story driven) genre Dan Brown writes in, the plot changes have to rewards you with the time that you have spent reading.

The great thing about reading is that it invokes emotions while at the same time requires you to use your own imagination. And for all of a book's substance, it has to be entertaining, whether that's with witty dialogue like Oscar Wilde, imaginative worlds and great characters like J.K Rowling, or Dan brown's narrative led mystery/thriller novels.