Haunted Homes: The Conjuring
The Conjuring- 2013. Dir. James Wan, written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes. Staring: Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren), Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren), Lili Taylor (Carolyn Perron), Ron Livingston (Roger Perron), Shanley Caswell (Andrea Perron), Hayley McFarland (Nancy Perron), Joey King (Christine Perron), Mackenzie Foy (Cindy Perron), Kyla Deaver (April Perron)
A large family moves into a house too good to be true. It is huge, the property has a small boat dock that leads to a lake. It has its problems, sure. You would call it a fixer upper. Furnace doesn’t seem to be heating the whole house, the house’s settling noises are a bit intense at times, there are drafts, pictures fall after being hung on the walls. All things that need some effort to fix up. There is also a curse on the property put there by a demonic force who possesses a family member and makes them want to kill their family. Apparently in the 1970’s all of this was acceptable for new homeowners, as this synopsis could be for many, many films set during this time period. Currently we are using this for James Wan’s first The Conjuring films.
What makes this one stand out from the other films is that part of the film centers on Ed and Laurrane Warren, two non-fiction people who investigate ghosts and demons from the 70’s til the late 90’s and early 2000’s. The Warrens have a very problematic real life history, which for those interested is easily available to look up, but the Warrens of this film and the rest of the Conjuring Cinematic Universe, are a hyper cleaned up version. A couple who are rock solid in their faith in God as they are in their love for each other. The Warrens in this film serve as expert outsiders who save the family from the demonic force that is targeting them. Ed is hesitant throughout much of this film as they had a previous exorcism go badly and Laurrane had some trauma from the event. Laurrane is a medium and can sense presences, sometimes as a dark cloud, sometimes as a full on solid person. While the series ups her psychic ability to the point of being a super power in this film she stays within the parameters that most movie psychic powers show themselves. That is, in small glimpses and feelings, with the camera showing us the impressions she senses. She’s not levitating or pushing a person with her mind, that’s for the third film.
This isn’t the only haunted family film that has a third party come in to save the day, Poltergeist has a third party for the third party with Zelda. The ultimate message is that someone needs to come in and help the family because they just aren’t equipped to deal with the haunting. In this case it is made very clear that the Perron family is lacking in God. That’s really all that the Warren’s bring to this. Out of all of the haunted families the Perrons are very happy. Good relationship with the parents, the kids are all lovely and appropriately annoying to each other like siblings are. The oldest teen is sullen in the one scene that she gets to have, and gets her own large, haunted room. When the rest of the family yells about the ghosts the father, having not seen anything other than a door open on its own, doesn’t scoff or doubt them he supports them. He also isn’t the one that goes crazy and tries to ax everyone. But the kids aren’t baptized and the church doesn’t want to help as they aren’t members and this is a demon, sort of.
The “demon” is the spirit of Bathsheba, a woman who, in the 1800’s, sacrificed her child to satan and then hung herself in the tree on her property cursing any that take her land away. Now I say “demon” because they make several references that a demonic entity is a life form that never walked this earth as a human, but Bathsheba was a human. As this is all based loosely on real life occurrences Bathsheba was an actual woman that lived in the 1800’s and was accused of killing a neighbor’s child with a needle. She lived well beyond this incident and supposedly never hung herself, but was thought to be a witch and a witch related to someone that was murdered during the Salem Witch Trials. In the film, Bathsheba was a lady that became a demon, which seems muddy with the film’s logic. Maybe they are saying Bathsheba wasn’t responsible for her actions and it was the devil that made her do it (see Conjuring 3).
The Perron family seems lovely. They all enjoy each other, despite a little teasing between siblings, and the stress of living on the edge of mid and lower class. Both parents seem protective of their children and loving (you know up until one is possessed by a centuries old witch). Both parents love each other as well. The husband is a trucker and has to get routes otherwise they won’t have any money and he begrudgingly picks up a three week route that goes between Rhode Island and Florida. In the brief scene of the husband on the phone setting this up you can hear in his voice and see in his body language that he does not want to do this. He would much rather do smaller runs so he isn’t away from his family. And this is before any serious ghostly things happen. Though the ghosts do use his leaving to kick things well the fuck up. The mother is stressed, which seems understandable. She is a stay at home mom, taking care of five girls ranging from teenager to just before going into school (so 4 or 5?). She has probably been on the stay at home mom gig since the first child was born so roughly 15 years of being focused on the home and the family. Add to this they moved across states to this new run down, but potentially wonderful house. It was cheap but still not fully in their budget. Her husband is gone due to work most of the time and that’s the only adult in her life it seems. She is tired and stressed and is up til 3am folding laundry some nights. Despite all this, and the ghosts, they have a happy home life. It is honestly sad that they get tortured by this ghost. The literally did nothing wrong aside from move into the house. Ok so the youngest did find a spooky toy and used it to commune with a dead ghost child, but that isn’t even the ghost that’s fucking with them. I don’t count unsealing the basement as a “you disturbed the spirits” move like you see in Amityville where they literally break through a wall and find a satanic well. All the important things in the house are down there. The Perron’s don’t deserve this. One might say that involving the Warren’s may have made things worse. But then again, things were getting progressively worse. I do think the Warrens sped things up though. Which tracks for how the actual real life family felt after the Warren’s came to the house. There seems to be a common trend in the Warren’s real life exploits where the family that has the ghosts kick the Warrens out during their investigation. I really want to go into the nitty gritty aspects of the Warren investigations one day. Finding reliable reports of the investigations is very hard though.
When this film first came out in theaters I loved it. I liked the slow creepyness of the beginning and how things ramped up. I love that it had some good practical effects and I loved Lili Taylor (both in general and in this role, she is great). Out of the trilogy and the wider Conjourverse I like this one the most. It feels like Amityville but with a different enough story to keep it fresh. But the more I watch the more I notice weird things that seem off. Like the fact that demons by definition were never human and yet Bathsheba was definitely human. Ed and Roger Perron bond over fixing an old chevy and I am not sure if that chevy came with the house or they somehow towed the chevy from New Jersey to Rhode Island. And finally, the secret basement. Ok I know all of this is nitpicky and over all does not ruin the film but the conceit of the film is that this family discovers that the basement was sealed up with boards. Presumably to keep the ghosts in the basement. But in the basement are the fuse box, the water heater, and the furnace that they mention repeatedly throughout the film. I understand that the family bought the house at an auction. But they should have looked at it prior to moving in. They should at least know where the fuses and furnace are? This is New England! It gets cold in the winter.
Again, these don’t make me hate the film, if anything I love these little plops of questionable things. On its own I would say this is a solid haunted house horror film. The series? I’m not too thrilled with. The Conjuring series gets more and more judgey about religion and has a Satanic Panic sort of vibe to it all in a serious way. Not in a campy, satirical way. Ultimately I’d recommend seeing this film if anyone hasn’t yet, or is just getting into horror. I’d for sure recommend it to someone new to horror. It has creeping tension, jump scares, light gross out scenes, children in peril. It is a great litmus test to see what direction a new horror fan should move towards.
