I recently met up with actor Steve Coulter at CAPE Cornwall; he is perhaps best known for his turn as Reg Monroe in the television series The Walking Dead. Coulter has also worked an impressive five times with horror maestro James Wan (he has been directed by him four times as well as being in one of his productions). He plays the role of Father Gordon in Wan’s The Conjuring and its sequel The Conjuring 2. I reached out to him to get a quote on the filmmaker. Coulter had nothing but praise for the man, stating “James’s skill in directing horror is, first of all, based on his ability as a storyteller. He knows how smart the audience is, particularly the horror film audience. As such a fan of the horror genre, he knows the usual shortcuts that are made, and he doesn’t take them. He knows what REALLY scares people. And he is such a masterful filmmaker that he knows how to craft those scares so that they are truly frightening, not just the usual Hollywood jump scares. He’s also a master at building suspense.” Keep an eye open for an upcoming Star Pick with the actor in the very near future.
James Wan utilizes a real life story, adapted for the screen by Chad and Carey Hayes, and transports us back to 1971, when Roger and Carolyn Perron (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor), along with their five daughters, move into an old, historic and slightly rundown farmhouse. From the onset, Wan places the camera in the optimum location. As the family approaches the home, the camera stalks them from within the structure, as if something is ominously watching them from the interior of the abode. Their dog, Sadie, sensing a deep foreboding, will not enter with the family. The children almost immediately settle into the home by playing their favourite game, ‘hide and clap’, where someone is blindfolded and is allowed to ask for three claps from the others with the aim of giving the searcher a chance to track them down. While playing, they stumble upon a boarded up entrance to a basement that they did not know existed (the cellar is filled with dusty old antiques and piles of junk).
It does not take long for the family to start experiencing odd occurrences. Every clock in the house stops at 3:07 every morning, their dog is soon discovered dead and daughter Christine (Joey King) is woken in the middle of the night (her leg is being pulled – though not by her sister, as she first thinks). It does not help that Roger is forced to leave on long trips transporting goods out of town.
In just one of many spine-tingling moments, Carolyn, hearing clapping, heads out to track what she thinks may be her children. She finds herself trapped in the basement with the lights no longer functioning. Left in complete darkness with only a box full of matches, the simple sounds of clapping have never felt so frightening – especially when you don’t know which way the spirit will come from.
Carolyn reaches out to paranormal investigators (and married couple) Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). The couple visit the secluded farmhouse and Lorraine, who has the sixth sense, immediately feels a menacing presence. They recommend that the house should receive an exorcism, but know that they will need to gather evidence in order to get permission from the Vatican.
The Warrens gather their team and rig the house with cameras, sensors and bells, which will provide them with the requisite evidence needed to prove the haunting to the Catholic Church. They track the vile spectre, which they discover, after doing some research, is the residue of a witch who sacrificed her baby more than a century ago. They soon learn that there have been numerous suspicious deaths and suicides that have happened on the property over the years.
Actor Steve Coulter with Filmizon.com’s Nikolai Adams at CAPE Cornwall on April 23, 2016
The Warrens finally head to their contact with the Church, Father Gordon (Steve Coulter), hoping that he will be able to fast track the exorcism. What follows, in no particular order, are possessions, exorcisms, sleepwalking, an unexpected discovery of a hidden passage, the observance of a ghost by way of some sort of haunted music box, and countless other freaky occurrences.
The Conjuring is a spooky horror film, in the traditional sense. Never using gore to scare (or more likely gross out viewers), director James Wan constructs a motion picture that feels classic but not staid. Though there are a number of elements that also appear in earlier horror flicks such as The Changeling, The Exorcist, The Orphanage and several others, The Conjuring never feels predictable or repetitive, despite some obvious similarities.
Another vital aspect to a successful horror story are the characters. In The Conjuring, there is a realistic and loving family that we can relate to, as well as The Warrens – a couple that clearly love each other, yet are strained by their profession (sounds like many a marriage). It is utterly believable as we watch Wilson portray a man who is stressed to the max, clearly worried as he sees the burden that the job puts on his wife. There is obviously much to lose in both cases, which provides the audience with a solid reason to root for both families as they deal with frightening supernatural aspects.
Wan clearly knows that sound is vital to creating the right mood. Turning the audio up to the perfect level, each creak, clap or crash permeates right to our gut, further intensifying the scares and the overall experience.
Much like I mentioned earlier in the piece, Wan always seems to have the innate ability to place the camera in the perfect spot. He also knows that less is more, allowing shadow, light, sound, dreaded anticipation and actors’ reactions to make us fret as much as anything we actually see onscreen. A bed sheet taking the shape of a figure for a minute moment, a face looking upon Lorraine from the upstairs window, the jingle of a bell, or the appearance of feet dangling somewhere that they weren’t just moments before, makes for a memorable horror film that few in this day and age achieve.
The Conjuring is a superb horror film that hits the right chord (an immensely creepy one), nearly each and every time. James Wan envelops us in a cloak of perpetual dread, making those little hairs on the back of your neck stand up from beginning to end. So, make sure to conjure up this gem of a film, it will make you both clap and hide after seeing it.