Conjuring: The Warren Files: James Wan’s Horror Film Turns 10
In a decade, it was declined in a saga of twelve films, which brought in more than 700 million dollars at the box office!
Ed and Lorraine Warren, world-renowned paranormal investigators after the Amytiville and Connecticut cases, flush out ghosts using technical equipment. They collect evidence using video and audio recordings. In 1971, the Warrens find themselves faced with the most terrifying case of their career, that of the Perron family. Since settling in an isolated farm in Harrisville, Rhode Island, the Perron couple and their five daughters have been terrorized by a disturbing presence. On site, Ed and Lorraine Warren will face the most formidable evil power of their lives…
Conjuring: The Warren Files, of James Wanwas released in France on August 21, 2013. Ten years later, this little scary film carried by Patrick Wilson And Vera Farmigawith a well-thought-out promo (the poster that sends shivers down your spine with its hangman shadow, its teaser “clap clap” which makes us jump every time…), has become the starting point of a huge saga. Direct sequels, spin-offs on the evil Annabelle doll or the frightening Nun… Conjuring today represents twelve films and weighs more than 700 million dollars at the box office!
Fifth realization of James Wan, Conjuring is the filmmaker’s third horror film to repeat the same pattern after the first installment of Saw (which he co-created with Leigh Whannell) And Insidious : of the horror movies at very low cost which ultimately turn out to be huge public successes.
The triumph of Conjuring was moreover the most spectacular of all at the time since from an initial budget of 20 million dollars, Conjuring collected 318 million worldwide, including more than 100 in the United States alone (it has since been caught up by La Nonne and its 365 million amassed in 2018). What to consolidate the statute of little genius of the horror of Wan, even if this Conjuring does not always shine by its originality as wrote First at the time. Here is our review.
Faced with an exorcism film, one of two things: either you are very afraid whatever your convictions, or your fear is nourished by your belief in the existence of the devil and his manifestations. So far, only one film has managed to terrify atheists and believers alike: The Exorcist, by William Friedkin. He was so convincing that he may have helped to arouse vocations. This is the case of Ed and Lorraine Warren, a couple of“paranormal investigators” who scoured the United States in the 1970s and whose Conjuring – The Warren Files reconstitutes one of the cases dealt with.
But here, director James Wan (who made a small reputation with Saw And Insidious) merely recycles the panoply of effects invented by Friedkin (evil statues, vomit, screams, incantations in Latin…), without ever managing to elevate his film above religious propaganda – which he does not even seek to deny, as the quotation in the epilogue indicates. Vade retro.
The Conjuring will become a series… but not horror!
