The Conjuring, the Supernatural Fiction that Surpassed the Real Events
The Warrens are back in the spotlight in the latest installment of this horror trilogy: The Conjuring, the Devil Made Me Do It. Here we bring you an excellent review of the film.
This third installment is capable of giving us terrifying, funny moments, and above all full of love. Photo: YT-ONEMedia
LatiAmerican Post | Theoscar Mogollón González
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Leer en español: El Conjuro, la ficción sobrenatural que sobrepasó los hechos reales
Many have been the comments that have emerged about the film version of the life of Ed and Lorraine Warren, that marriage of professionals of the paranormal who were present in a large number of cases around the United States and abroad. It was thanks to their files that Warner started The Conjuring, the highest grossing horror franchise in recent years and that has not stopped gaining followers. However, many still wonder, how real were those events?
Although they already had a certain fame, it was in the 1970s when the Warrens began to have the most notorious cases and that would eventually make it to the big screen . Ed and Lorraine seemed willing to believe all the stories, as long as they could add the exorcism to the archives of the New England Society for Psychic Research, their great contribution to the world of parapsychology. And it is that at that time, there were several people who questioned what was done by the now icons of terror.
In 1992 the book In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting was published , where its writer, Ray Garton, summed up his impressions of Lorraine Warren in a forceful sentence: "If she told me that the sun was going to rise tomorrow morning I'd ask for a second opinion. " To that should be added what happened in 1979 with the case of the alleged haunted house in Amityville, which resulted in accusations of fraud against the Warrens beyond their enthusiastic involvement. With scenarios full of doubts and suspicions, the best strategy of the filmmakers was to turn reality into fiction.
It all started with the stories of the Perron family from Rhode Island and the Hodgson family from North London , who laid the foundations for the first two films directed by James Wan. These are certainly based on real events, but Enfield's poltergeist marked the point where fiction was more emphatically separated from reality. Several testimonies claimed that the Warrens showed up in England without being called and that, at most, they spent a day at the house investigating. In the movie, instead, they hinted that Ed's skills were key to solving the case.
The Devil Made Me Do It: A Tribute To Horror Classics
This third installment is capable of giving us terrifying, funny moments, and above all full of love. Likewise, we find elements where the director, Michael Chaves, makes brief tributes to The Shining and The Exorcist , mainly the latter with the initial sequence in which a priest approaches the house where the possessed child is. And it is precisely an exorcism that triggers the plot.
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The story dates back to 1981 with the Warrens being participants in this practice to an 8-year-old boy, David . Also in the place are Debbie, David's sister, and her boyfriend, Arne, who begs the demond to possess him instead. As expected, such a moment happens and that would be the cause of the brutal murder that Arne would commit later.
«El caso real de Arne Cheyenne Johnson es interesante porque tuvo consecuencias muy serias y tangibles en las vidas de sus protagonistas. Representa la primera vez en toda la historia de los Estados Unidos en que un hombre citó la posesión demoniaca como coartada en un juicio por homicidio. Para mí, es interesante ver el proceso no tanto como un quién-lo-hizo, sino como un por-qué-lo-hizo». – Patrick Wilson en una entrevista para GQ.
The work done by Chaves manages to match the quality of the two previous installments that were in charge of James Wan, who without the need for grotesque scenes made viewers jump from their chairs. Although at times the film seems unoriginal and very repetitive, the real touch is taken by the Warrens, or at least the chemistry between Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, in addition to the enormous care put into the direction of art, music and photography .
More than ghost stories
At this point, talking about The Conjuring is synonymous with terror, ghosts and demons, but the true center of this trilogy is the Warrens and the immense love they have for each other. Each film has shown that great bond that Ed and Lorraine had at the time and that, for the latter, was even more evident. Even Vera herself witnessed that. "I had the honor of meeting Lorraine before she passed away in 2019 and I saw how she was welcoming me and giving all the keys to being her on screen. Above all, I witnessed the love she felt for Ed," she commented in an interview with GQ
If we do a deeper analysis, we will notice that the most palpable of the scripts was always the reciprocal devotion between wife and husband. Given this, Patrick assures that "most horror franchises follow the villain . What makes us different is that we follow Ed and Lorraine's relationship, so powerful that it ends up being a source of frustration for Evil." Without a doubt, if there is something real in the midst of so much fiction, it is that true love is the only thing capable of triumph over anything.
