What is Scarier than a Demon Possessing a Person? Having it be a True Story.

Rating: 10/10 (18 January 2019)

The main goal for any horror movie is to make you too afraid to leave your closet open at night or to have your feet sticking out of your blankets while you're sleeping and The Conjuring does just that. Director James Wan does an amazing job to create a spine-chilling experience while at the same time having you fall in love with the characters and their family
Wan starts off the movie with great suspense by using intense music to lead to a back story of the doll who started it all. Two young nurses tell their story of how they allow the spirit of a 7-year-old girl named Annabelle to move into the doll they have in their apartment. They continue with stories of the doll moving and doing things all over their apartment such as drawing on the walls and destroying everything. This is how we meet paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. They are the ones who introduce the demon and explain how he used the doll and Annabelle as a way to get to the girls and possess them. Wan uses this to give the viewer information on demons and paranormal spirits that they might need to help explain later scenes. It then cuts to a family of 7 moving into a new house. That we later find out has a demonic presence in it that tries to take over the family. Once the family experiences this presence in many different ways they turn to Ed and Lorraine to help them out. They end up finding out that a woman who lived in the house when it was first built had a history of witchcraft proclaimed her loved to Satan and cursed anyone who moved there along with many other disturbing details. Ed and Lorraine continue to work with this family to try and get rid of this nasty demon.
James Wan does an amazing job to connect all of the stories in the Conjuring universe together. This includes both of The Conjuring's, the Annabelle movies and The Nun. Whether it be using the same doll or the same characters, it really impacts the overall story. Wan has also directed other very popular movies such as The Insidious series, Lights Out, the Saw movies, Furious 7, and Aquaman. Major props to this man for being so creative and being able to find ways to leave impacts on people with these movies.
One of my absolute favorite things about this movie is that is based on a true story. At the beginning of the movie one of the major ways he shows the viewers this is by putting text on the screen about who the Warren's really are and then ends the paragraph with the isolated sentence of, "Based on the true story." I think the way he made that sentence stand by itself was very powerful and made the movie become so much scarier for the audience. Also at the end of the movie, they literally added pictures of the real-life Warrens and Annabelle doll. Doing that gets rid of all the doubting thoughts that come to mind and makes it even more astounding. After seeing these pictures, I for sure wanted to learn more about the Warrens and their stories so I looked them up on the internet and found even more information about them. It is a big thing when you can say a story is true because in my opinion what really makes a viewer terrified is the fact that things like this could happen to them. If the movie is super unrealistic the director really has to focus on incorporating other blood-curdling aspects to add to make it scarier.
Another aspect of James Wan's work that is very expressive is the way that he uses very dark rooms to represent all of the evil. I think this is a good technique because we associate the dark with sinister, scary things and the light with the good, virtuous things. We also associate the dark with unknown things which makes the perfect opportunity for jump scares which Wan is very skilled at integrating into his scary movies. He makes sure to build up the intense music to make the shock even greater and jump even higher. I feel like adding suspenseful music and sounds make the anticipation so tremendous and just adds the serious thrill to scary movies.
I will admit you can definitely see some things coming but, they crafted the movie so well that it'll still get your hair to stand on end. Not only is it scary but it has such an appreciable plot that just makes you want to keep seeing more from the Perron and Warren families. By the end of the movie, I was so emotionally connected to the characters that this will forever be my favorite series, even though it may leave me to believe I am seeing things in the shadows late at night.