6 Years Of Conjuring: Not Just Saving Grace For Horror, This Film Proved Basics Seldom Go Wrong

Horror is one genre that has limited yet a niche audience, right? The divide is very specific. There¡¯s one section that loves watching horror and the other which detests it. There¡¯s no middle ground. Come to think of it, what allures the former towards the dark world? Fear of the unknown, demonic forces, monstrous creatures or the dark spirits that possess bodies? What really are the right ingredients for a horror film to be perfect?

The questions are many and the answers are unspecific. However, the bottom line remains that horror movies in general, draw a good crowd. Now, if we talk about this genre in the home-ground, the good options are next to none. Barring a few handful movies, Bollywood¡¯s Horror genre is not quite accomplished. We might churn out some fantastic thrillers every now and then, but the horror section remains to be an uncharted and unexplored territory for many filmmakers. Which is why the fans, depend heavily on the West for their needs to be fulfilled.

One such franchise which managed to hook audiences across the globe is The Conjuring series. Let¡¯s take a look at 6 reasons why this movie saved the face of horror genre in Hollywood:

1. Stories which are generally based on true events, automatically become a tad but more interesting and The Conjuring was one!

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Well, this could be a personal opinion but come to think of it, a majority of movies are fictional. It¡¯s refreshing when films based on real stories make it to the silver screen. How else would you explain the successful biopics trend that has been doing the rounds for a long time now? Imagine when a maker picks up a horror story based on a true event, that one line in the beginning of the movie is enough to scare the bejesus out of anyone. All the madness that is shown on the silver screen has taken place in real life. Could it get more spooky than this?

Personally, when I saw the movie I was shaken up for at least a week. So much so, that I would get up at 3:07 AM every day, the same time when the clocks would stop working in the film. As unreal as it sounds, this experience is no hearsay.

2. The Warrens were super endearing from the word go

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The ghost-hunters or demonologists that were hired to take on the spirits won our hearts right from the first scene. Ed and Lorraine Warren played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga weren¡¯t the hippy looking people trying to add feathers in their hat, instead, they were like any other normal couple who had empathy for the Perron family and determination to make their lives better by helping them get rid of the spirits. Their perseverance to do the rightful, cost their own family in a big way, but that didn¡¯t deter them from taking it till the end.

3. The core concept was so broad that it created enough room for an entire series

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Truth be told, after watching the movie, I did have an inclination that a sequel was on the cards but i couldn¡¯t have surmised that the makers would turn into a whole new ball game altogether. While Conjuring franchise continued it¡¯s path, a parallel series Annabelle was borne out of it and so was The Nun and it created a ripple effect and got the audiences hooked. Interestingly, some of the installments did not even star the Warrens but they were still super-successful, courtesy a good story-line and sufficient scares.

4. We were introduced to the Annabelle doll for the first time with this movie

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Even though it was a semi-intro, it still piqued the interest of the viewers. The doll locked up in a glass box with instructions from the couple to NEVER open it, come what may was enough for us to know that things are only going to go downhill from there on. And Valak, the spirit in the nun costume. To be honest, back in the day when everyone saw the movie, most of us were confused about the connection of these spirits with the main story. Little did we know that it would go on to become separate franchises!

5. The Background compositions are not hauntingly beautiful and spooky at the same time

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Trust director James Wan to showcase his talent with scary foreground-background compositions because nobody does it better than Wan. Remember Saw and Insidious? They don¡¯t call him the most chilling stylist of the horror genre who uses depth in his frames for nothing.

Talking about his ideology behind making such out-of-the-box horror movies, he said in an interview, ¡°After Saw, I¡¯ve become known as the grandfather of torture porn. That kind of annoyed me.¡± So he decided that this film was going to show people that ¡°there are many ways to scare people other than throwing buckets of blood.¡±

6. Jumpscares and minute elements made it even more menacing

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Reiterating the most important fact, James Wan decided against showing gore or gratuitous violence like horror movies do in general. With the Conjuring series he wanted to bring the old world and classic Hollywood charm in the field of horror. Instead of blood, he gave us claps. Importantly, even the exorcism scene wasn¡¯t overdone. The audiences were deliberately made to stare in the darkness which helped in giving big jumpscares with little elements. Simple yet a classic, right?

Well, with the weekend right around the corner, how about a binge-watching sessions of this series? Sounds like a plan, right?