Movie Review and Subsequent Discussion: THE CONJURING SERIES (up through THE NUN 2)

I just finished watching THE CONJURING series as it has been completed thus far, the most recent movie at this writing being THE NUN 2 (2023). Demonic Catholic nuns don’t exactly fascinate me the way demonic dolls do, the latter being the main theme in the three ANNABELLE movies in this franchise: ANNABELLE, ANNABELLE: CREATION, and ANNABELLE COMES HOME. (For my review of the ANNABELLE movies, I mainly just reviewed the third one, which you can read here: https://practicalpagan.blog/2024/05/19/mini-movie-review-annabelle-comes-home-2019/). But, they can be equally as creepy as, say, some clowns. (My apologies to nuns in general, the vast majority of them being not at all demonic, of course.) THE NUN 2 was a little better than THE NUN (2018). I enjoyed the intrigue and haunted school setting in 1956 France. Gothic supernatural horror is often interesting to me. Like its prequel, this movie has a dramatic, clunky climax, which is formulaic and rather pat. But, some of the cinematography is pretty in both productions. And I enjoy seeing ancient architecture and old paintings. A certain brief portrayal of a demon was particularly creepy and fascinating in THE NUN 2. As both of these movies progress, the increasing amount of demonic imagery makes them less scary and more sensationalistic, especially in the first of the two. This results in more campy, spectacle-filled fun, but less eerie and suspenseful atmosphere. The sequel seemed to maintain having more creepy, suspenseful scenes compared to the earlier film. All fun stuff, not to be taken seriously.

The first movie in the series, THE CONJURING (2013) is quite eerie and intriguing, less over-the-top campy than its sequels, THE CONJURING 2 (2016) and THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT (2021). It’s a pretty good screenplay overall, even though very Catholic and Christian oriented, which the entire series very much is. All three of these particular productions focus on a real life couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren, helping people to exorcise a demon, or a demonically possessed ghost (this being the case in the first two), out of someone. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are excellent in their portrayals as each of these main characters, with an extra nod to Ms. Farmiga. Her role as that of a psychic medium is especially emotionally demanding and compelling.

I’ve long been fascinated by the clearing away of energetic, including spirit, attachments that occur in people. I’m personally more interested in non-Christian oriented methods, such as shamanic ones, derived from ancient and current indigenous cultures, none of which were originally Christian, and most not being otherwise Abrahamic either. I have an elder colleague, who, while himself identifying as Christian, does spirit and energy clearings for people from what he calls a “psychopomp” approach, which is shamanic. These methods are more gentle than exorcism, but are also persistent and effective.

After watching THE CONJURING movies, most of them based somewhat on several actual events, I’m reminded that there is a rightful place for exorcism practices. I’m just left with curiosity about the non-Christian ones. A crucial aspect of any exorcism, or spirit attachment release in general, is to have a well-developed, confident warrior and healer mentality, backed up with/built upon a strong spiritual system. Being a good psychotherapist ultimately requires these as well. This is at least what I’ve personally come to understand as a mental health professional over the past twenty-five years.

The binary/polarity metaphysics of demons and their supreme leader, the Devil, on one side and God and Jesus Christ on the other are the focus in these CONJURING movies. The series has a feel of Catholic propaganda, yet admittedly all six movies I’ve seen each comprise good, intriguing story-telling. Perhaps, someday, there will be more screenplays written and produced about non-Christian approaches to resolving cases of what is most commonly known as demonic possession. Demons, as I understand them, are chaotic and harmful nonhuman spirits that occur in nature, best left alone and not interacted with. They are different from plant and tree spirits, which are comparatively more neutral in morality and behavior. There is much more nuance and assorted details to the metaphysics of spirits, including demons, and their strata in the universe than what I can say here. Whole books have been written about this large topic of the occult.

Needless to say, the CONJURING movies are entertaining and thought-provoking. I just started watching the INSIDIOUS series. The supernatural has always intrigued me. Some would say “supernatural” is a misleading term, as all such phenomena given that label are simply of another domain of existence in a complex universe of energy and subatomic particles, thus ultimately being natural/occurring in nature.

Movie Review: CRIMSON PEAK (2015)

I’ve been on a Guillermo del Toro movie kick lately, as he is my favorite contemporary director. His CRIMSON PEAK (2015) is visually rich in a darkly beautiful way. Del Toro’s trademark interplay with beauty and the grotesque is at work throughout in this Edwardian period Gothic horror romance, which largely takes place in 1901 Cumberland, England. Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, and Jessica Chastain star, all lovely to look at and believably fitting to the time period. The amber/sepia tone lighting and lush sets, especially of a decaying mansion, create an eerie, foreboding atmosphere throughout. We viewers feel for the sheltered Edith (Wasikowska), the new bride of Sir Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston), who has a disturbing level of devotion to his older sister Lucille (Chastain). This is a ghost story in which specters of the dead are luridly portrayed in del Toro’s over the top style, albeit gratuitously so in places. This movie reminded me of one of his early works, THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE (2001), which is also a ghost story. Both are filled with themes of decay, murder, moral corruption, innocence under attack, and ghosts representing inescapable conscience.

While CRIMSON PEAK is clearly very derivative from other ghost horror movies, such as THE SHINING, THE HAUNTING, and THE INNOCENTS, del Toro’s unique aesthetic makes this production sufficiently fresh and interesting, particularly if you can appreciate his extreme visual richness. Like Edith with her active imagination, we viewers steadily become over saturated with stimuli, including aurally. Creaks and background screams grow more frequent as Edith’s days progress in Allerdale Hall, the dilapidated Sharpe estate. But it’s the visual domain here that is most intense, including with clever use of CGI. This screen play is one of grace and clean beauty on the surface with seething brutality hovering nearby and relentlessly pushing further through, ultimately to a drawn out climax. The story’s emotional tone is reflective of the director’s astute sensibilities, the harsh times we’re currently in, and the unintegrated shadow side of human nature. And that’s why CRIMSON PEAK is generally excellent, even with its overuse of bloody and slimy ghost imagery and what some would call an “over-produced” look. For it is because of that very look that frame after frame in scenes are each like a classic, richly colored painting.

Book Review: THE DJINN WAITS A HUNDRED YEARS by Shubnum Khan

The new novel, THE DJINN WAITS A HUNDRED YEARS, by female South African Indian author Shubnum Khan is a lyrically graceful, intriguing, and poignant read. I was looking for some new fiction featuring djinns/genies in some way and came upon this title.

The gender neutral djinn here is a wandering, grief-stricken spirit with very little power to do much around it other than witness happenings within and add ambiance to the run-down house it haunts. The old estate, Akbar Manzil, is personified by Khan with beautiful descriptions, portraying it as a living being, holding much painful history of a family headed up by a wealthy Indian Muslim man and his mother. When he takes a second wife from a lower caste than his own and his first wife’s, discord abounds.

The narration flows back and forth between taking place in 2014 and flashbacks mostly to the early 1930s. A fifteen year-old girl and her widowed father become the newest tenants of Akbar Manzil in Durban, South Africa. The lonely girl, Sana, begins to explore the large home and its surrounding grounds, coming upon old items and a long locked room, all filled with clues of the original occupants’ lives.

THE DJINN WAITS A HUNDRED YEARS is a balanced mix of Gothic mystery horror, a coming of age story, and historical fiction. The colorful, often ornate, descriptions make for lush reading. I also enjoyed learning about some early 20th century South African and Indian history and geography. The eccentric tenants of the old mansion, built in the early 1920s, are both entertaining and touching. Like Sana and her kind but sad father Bilal, they too are social misfits, even though many of them once weren’t. I could relate to Sana as she tries to navigate a life of early losses and new environments to adjust to.

Overall, this is a lovely story, even with some grammatical problems here and there that the proofreader overlooked.

Movie Review: DARK SHADOWS (2012)

I finally saw the intentionally over-the-top Tim Burton directed movie, DARK SHADOWS, from 2012. I’m not a fan of that old TV series per se, but I’ve watched a good handful of its episodes. This screenplay is a fun mix of camp and blatant comedy, even spoof at times.

The setting of the Collinwood estate is darkly beautiful, with Michelle Pfeiffer as its elegant resident matriarch (Elizabeth Collins Stoddard) of a once powerful family in Maine. I’ve always generally liked Burton’s visual aesthetics, which certainly are not everyone’s cup of tea.

Johnny Depp is quite good as reluctant vampire Barnabas Collins, even though I personally dislike him for his offscreen relationship antics. His heavy makeup verges on clown-like, but it actually works along with his delivery of generally formal, often flowery English and dramatic hand gestures. He is believably transformed into both a tragic and somewhat absurd character.

Eva Green wonderfully camps it up as villainess witch Angelique. I had no idea Ms. Green had such sass and juice in her, but she does.

Helena Bonham Carter as psychiatrist Julia Hoffman and Jonny Lee Miller as Roger Collins are the weakest portrayals. For many of us in a few certain age groups, it is difficult not to compare the cast to its original TV show counterparts. Carter and Miller don’t do enough in their roles to stand out/uniquely redefine their parts like everyone else in the movie otherwise does. Miller simply falls flat by not camping it up at all like scenery chewing screen queen Louis Edmonds offers in the original series, which was a missed opportunity. Playing it straight was a miscalculation here. Sigh. And Carter clearly tries for something in her salty aging alcoholic broad persona but only comes across as an incomplete caricature. I wondered if her scenes were edited down, whereby her Dr. Hoffman had originally been more fleshed out but was trimmed away to keep the production to a shorter running time, the narrative fast moving.

The original series was produced from 1966 to 1971. This movie intentionally takes place in 1972, playing up assorted music and material references to that year and time period, often quite amusingly. Barnabas’ disturbance and puzzlement over a lava lamp is funny, playing up how he is an anachronism from the 18th century, as the whole movie is succinctly reflecting back to us viewers, in just under two hours, a now dated, anachronistic series. The interplay of both spoof and homage to 1960s and early 70s, even a bit of 1950s, pop culture is mostly delightful in this often silly, tongue-firmly-in-cheek movie.

I appreciated the late, old-time horror icon Christopher Lee’s cameo and a few original series stars’ brief appearances (such as that of Jonathan Frid, the first portrayer of Barnabas Collins) in a big party scene. Like me, Burton clearly likes the Gothic horror genre and the later Mid Century Modern pop culture period, which comes through despite some of the movie’s unevenness. There is enough colorfuness in the lush, likely CGI enhanced sets, costumes, and largely old-style dramatic acting to excuse the production’s weaknesses. I generally found it to be refreshingly fun, not at all dreary though not exactly great. Sometimes, indulging in an assortment of junk food is exactly the treat one needs. Same goes for indulgent junk viewing, with DARK SHADOWS being largely high level, well-made junk.