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Non-Review Review: The Conjuring 2

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Darren

The Conjuring 2 is effectively a tentpole horror.

It is very much a horror film, with James Wan demonstrating all the skill and technique that he had honed over years working in the genre. There some wonderful slow pans and creepy camera movements that emphasise negative space, some very effective use of timing and mounting dread, and a palpable sense of menace. There are jump scares and slow scares, and enough false alarms to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. The Conjuring 2 is in many ways an old-school archetypal horror film.

He ain’t afraid of no ghost…

However, there is something interesting happening in the background. The Conjuring 2 might have all the basic ingredients of a horror movie, but they are assembled in the style of a tentpole blockbuster. To be fair, the big summer release date is a bit of a clue, as is the climax that features a sweeping race-against-time as the heroes try to desperately make it back from the train station. Indeed, The Conjuring already launched something of a shared horror universe with the spin-off Annabelle.

In some respects, The Conjuring 2 feels like something of a mash-up, reflecting contemporary pop culture’s fascination with mashing existing concepts together to form intriguing cocktails. What is really surprising about the film is how well it works.

“I’m sorry, you wouldn’t happen to be able to direct me to the Marilyn Manson concert, would you?”

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, horror, James Wan, Movie, non-review review, patrick wilson, review, slender man, the amityville horror, the conjuring, the enfield poltergeist, Vera Farmiga | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Insidious – Chapter 2

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Darren

Horror sequels are tough to execute, particularly where you have a returning cast. After all, strong horror films typically work by ramping up the pressure on the central character, building inexorably towards a climax. It’s very hard to follow on from that – where do you go? It’s very difficult to wind the tension back down and start ramping up from scratch, and the same trick is never as effective the second time.

Insidious: Chapter 2 faces these challenges, and – to its credit – it tries to work around them. It embraces an almost camp aesthetic to help compensate for the fact that it effectively kicks off at maximum volume, relishing the sheer absurdity of its demonic co-stars. It splits the main cast up in order to allow it to try to maintain a constant sense of pressure, while also delving into back story and origin. It subtly shifts its frame of reference from movies about possession and haunting toward a different sort of horror film.

However, these attempts aren’t as successful as they might be. While there are moments of wit, the humour and heightened camp occasionally causes tonal confusion. Splitting the cast up is too convenient a narrative device and diffuses (rather than maintains) the tension. Slasher and serial killer movies are hard to get right at the best of times, and the movie’s climax feels awkward grafted on to a possession story. Insidious: Chapter 2 has moments where it works very well, but also spends a significant amount of its running time groping in the dark.

Well, at least it’s an amicable haunting…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: box office, Chapter (religion), film, Horror film, Insidious, James Wan, Leigh Whannell, Lin Shaye, patrick wilson, Scream 4, Trailer (promotion), Whannell | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Conjuring

Posted on July 31, 2013 by Darren

The Conjuring feels like a culmination of the nostalgia trip that we’ve seen with recent horrors like Insidious or Sinister, a conscious attempt to move away from the gore-laiden or found-footage-heavy approach to contemporary horror. Indeed, The Conjuring owes a fairly sizeable debt to director James Wan’s previous horror effort, Sinister. Not only does the film inherit leading man Patrick Wilson, it also follows roughly the same structure, right down to “paranormal investigators explore the house in a briefly humourous interlude.”

However, The Conjuring flows a lot easier than Insidious and is spared the third-act problems that plagued Sinister. The film is stronger for the honesty of its nostalgia. Even the title card is rendered in a font that looks like it could have been used for a forgotten seventies possession horror. The Conjuring doesn’t really push the boat out, and there’s nothing that will startle hardcore horror veterans, but there’s a very clear skill in its construction, an honesty to its affection and a sincerity to its charm that helps the film rise above so many contemporary horrors.

They ain’t afraid of no ghosts…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Amityville Horror, Conjuring, Ed & Lorraine Warren, Ed and Lorraine Warren, Horror film, James Wan, Lili Taylor, patrick wilson, Ron Livingston, Vera Farmiga | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Young Adult

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Darren

Young Adult is a good film, even if it falls short of greatness. It has a wonderfully engaging premise, and a set of truly wonderful leading performances from Patton Oswalt and Charlize Theron. It is also, for most of its runtime, a very compelling and brave examination of a very flawed protagonist. For the first two-thirds of the film, it invites us to follow a truly loathsome lead character, one with very few redeeming features. Unfortunately, this rather gutsy set-up is undermined by a fairly shallow attempt to justify and rationalise her flaws in the movie’s third act.

Homecoming queen?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Buddy, charlize theron, Elizabeth Reaser, film, Mavis, Movie, non-review review, patrick wilson, Patton Oswalt, review, Theron, Young Adult | 5 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Watchmen (Theatrical Cut)

Posted on October 10, 2009 by Darren

Probably the best we could have hoped for. Which is a guarded compliment at best. The movie has several gaping flaws, both as an adaptation of Alan Moore’s seminal work and also as a film in its own right. And yet it contains more interesting ideas than most prestige dramas, and at least two standout performances. The film is widely inconsistent, sometimes feeling too long in its gratuitous acton or sex scenes, but too short on the actual big ideas that make it thought-provoking. Ultimately, what ties the film down is also what props it up, in a manner: the fact that it is based on one of the most important books of the last quarter century.