Horror genre movies have a threshold, beyond this threshold, you can give the audience a stimulating viewing experience, but only to stimulate the audience's fright threshold, it will completely lose the story of the movie, thus falling into the category of B-grade films.
With classic series of movies such as "Moonlight Panic" and "Ghost Street" in front of it, it seems that few directors can create a series of horror stories that are comparable to the shadows of childhood, so in recent years, many horror films have tried to make breakthroughs in themes, such as the stunning "Escape from Desperate Town" and "Genetic Doom".
In 2013, a "Conjuring" set off a retro boom in horror films, and director Wen Ziren became a master of Hollywood horror genres with the "Conjuring" series and "Chainsaw Horror". Under his command, the slightly outdated haunted house exorcism movie "The Conjuring" was played with new tricks, and a series of spin-off works such as "Annabelle" were born.
When the latest article of the Conjuring Universe, "Conjuring 3", was released, the Douban score was only 6.5, which may not even pass in the eyes of some discerning horror film fans.
A story of a real case archetype changing, and the reality is more confusing than the movie?
"The Conjuring 3" is the third part of the main line of the Conjuring Universe, so the plot is also based on real cases, and the Warrens in the movie are also famous supernatural investigators in reality, and it is said that they have handled up to 10,000 supernatural cases, and they are also involved in some major murders from time to time.
The story of this film is adapted from the American "Demon Murder Case", which was highly concerned in American society at that time, not only because it was the first homicide in the local area in two hundred years, but also because the Warrens at that time advertised that the defendants killed because of the "demon upper body".
To this day, the case itself is still very suspenseful and controversial, and the Warrens participated in the trial as investigators of the defendants at that time.
At the beginning, the director shows the audience an exorcism ritual: a child is pressed on the table by his family, his twisted body seems to be squirming, and his hands and feet are bent into an eerie shape, which makes people shudder.
The exorcism priest was overwhelmed by the powerful demonic power and was thrown to the ground by the force of the broken body, and the Warrens saw the situation and immediately took the Bible to try to continue the exorcism, but they did not want to be controlled.
At this moment, in order to save his brother, his brother An did not hesitate to beg the demons in his brother's body, wanting to exchange his body for his brother's life, the words fell, and his brother's distorted face suddenly quieted down, and Xiao An also felt something enter his body...
An exorcism ceremony is accidentally interrupted, the family's life returns to peace, Ann and his fiancée's relationship gradually heats up, ready to get married, and it seems that the shadow of demonic possession has disappeared.
But soon after, a series of strange things began to appear in the family, and the hallucinations continued to invade Ann, until one day, he stabbed his friend alive in a frenzy.
The police found Ann two kilometers away from the scene of the crime, covered in blood, his eyes surrounded by a gloomy fog, as if caught in a nightmare.
The court wants to sentence him to death for intentional homicide, and when the Warrens hear about it, they suspect that there is a demon behind it, and in order to save the innocent Ann, they begin to investigate the case, but they do not want to be involved in a more devious incident...
Why did The Conjuring 1,2 succeed?
The Conjuring Series has two selling points: true-life events and Wen Ziren. Few directors dare to put real events in horror movies, because authenticity is indeed unverifiable. But the Warrens' legendary experience is well known in the United States, and they even have their own supernatural museum.
With the foundation of realistic materials, the beginning of the Conjuring series has earned enough eyeballs, and the success of Conjuring 1 has made fans have a strong interest in the adventures of the Warren couple that year, and the weird doll in their museum has also been excavated, allowing the Conjuring Universe to expand the "Annabelle" series of movies.
Director Wen Ziren is best at creating a horror suspense atmosphere, and Chainsaw Horror 1 can render the atmosphere vividly through a small secret room, two characters and a videotape. The use of simple materials with unknown mysteries makes the audience panic even if they are in the perspective of God because they cannot guess the development of the plot.
In "Conjuring", in fact, most of the horror scenes are set in a villa, and Wen Ziren only uses jump scare, dark lights, moving electric light furniture, black shadows in the mirror and other such unaccustomed techniques, but still get good results.
Traditional American horror films, for the sake of plasma will be early villain into the plot. But in the summoning of spirits, the director only infinitely magnifies the negative effects of the haunting, causing spiritual oppression to the protagonist and the audience in one strange event after another, and then showing the background story of the evil spirit through the investigation of the Warren couple, so that the original eerie atmosphere is added to the mystery under the narration of the two people.
In Conjuring 2, the evil spirits even deceive the Warrens until they hear the roar in the videotape on the train and rediscover its tracks.
Lovecraft, the founder of the Cthulhu system, the originator of horror fiction, once said that fear comes from the unknown, and the inability to control unknown environments and creatures can make people feel insecure.
The film does not let the evil spirit appear for a long time, but only uses various strange events and side descriptions to make the audience's fear of it be mobilized to the highest point, and this unknown is infiltrated into each shot, from the family is just surprised by strange things, to the horror that begins to invade their bodies, and then the exorcist tells the purpose of the evil spirit, causing the protagonists to slowly have a mental breakdown, and the audience's emotions are firmly grasped by the director.
Coupled with the suspense bonus of real events and religious backgrounds, The Conjuring successfully creates a great horror experience with a fresh approach.
"Summoning Spirits" 3, which has lost its essence, is tasteless and regrettable to abandon it.
The director of this film has directed the "Curse of the Weeping Woman" in the conjuring universe, and Wen Ziren is only a producer, so you can hardly feel the familiar creepy style of step-by-step, but has become a decent suspense thriller movie, and even slightly green in the shaping of the atmosphere, and can only pull back a little score through the IP of "The Conjuring".
First of all, the film shows the audience the process of evil spirit possession at the beginning, thus losing all the suspenseful atmosphere. After that, the second half of the film almost revolves around the warrens' investigation, the space is no longer limited to a house, and the conflict between the evil spirits and the Warrens is no longer set, and even the main characters are completely abandoned from being frightened to possessing and collapsing.
And the film itself emphasizes that "based on real events" has also been turned into a reproduction by the director, just adding some haunted traces.
Itself through the gimmick of real events to a large extent enriched the mystery of the plot, from the reality of the material to today has been impossible to verify, it is precisely because of this uncertainty, the director does not need to play too much, just need to simply place this background, it is enough to make the audience think of it.
In fact, the truth behind it is not important, what is important is the strangeness and gimmick of the case itself, but in "The Conjuring" 3, the background story of "Demon Murder" becomes the detective process, and a suspense thriller movie becomes today's statement.
It can be seen that the director wants to make innovations in "The Conjuring" 3, but after abandoning the original advantages, the innovative part seems to be lackluster.
If you can set the background more grandly like "True Detective", describe the darkness behind it more difficult to touch, compared to the smallness of the Warrens, you may be able to create greater fear, and even further broaden the "Conjuring" universe.
But in the movie, the whole investigation can only make people feel perfunctory and boring, and even the love portrayal of the Warren couple seems to be a last resort.
Compared with horror movies such as "Escape from Breaking Bad" and "Genetic Doom", which are also innovative, "The Conjuring 3" lacks a script design that is really attractive after breaking away from Wen Ziren. The brilliance of "Escape from Desperate Town" lies in the bloody cruelty that the girlfriend's family inadvertently reveals in a gentle and elegant way, while "Genetic Doom" allows the audience to feel how the family is eaten by a cult. These fears are not overt, but penetrate the details, as if drilling through the cracks between the bones.
In contrast, "The Conjuring 3", the beginning is an exorcism ceremony, and the second half hopes to focus on the Warren couple, but does not have enough strength to shape the reaction of the two in the face of darkness, but instead becomes a love scene with slight dog blood.
It can only be said that this movie is really like a chicken rib, although it is still worth watching with IP bonuses, but its core is more like a failure of a newcomer director after trying his own style. According to the end of the movie, "The Conjuring" should have a sequel, but I hope that whether it is innovation or the return of the warm director, the next "Conjuring" can really make people feel trembling and fearful.