Modern horror is in a weird rut right now. It seems like it’s stuck in a bizarre middle place between being eternally popular with teens, and simultaneously bashed and ignored by the masses as trash. Sadly they’re really not always wrong to do so, because a lot of horror films are total s**t. It’s easy to write a quick story about zombies or radioactive mutants, film it on a cheap digital camera and label it a “found footage” movie these days and watch it rake in the dough. That’s why I vastly prefer the work that’s been coming out from Jason Wan lately. He’s the guy who started big with Saw, which everyone loved and then watched turn into the royal crapfest of sequels that it inevitably became. But he went on to make some excellent movies, coming to a head with his masterpiece from two years ago, Insidious. A movie that if you haven’t seen, I highly recommend going to go see because it’s the first film in years that’s creeped me out to the point where I didn’t want to be home alone for a while. With the turnaround of praise from that we go Sinister, I movie I only found disappointing due to my own heightened expectations from its AMAZING trailer, but still worthy a view on its own.
Now we’ve got another example of horror done right by James Wan, with The Conjuring, a film that yet again has a trailer that not only has me interested, but damn creeped out. If you can manage to both of those things to me within two and half minutes, you’ll always have my interest.
Yeah it does have a typical loud noise jump gag in the middle, but that’s to be expected. At least it was a very well done one, with that creepy as hell breathing scene beforehand, and followed by the insanely creepy clapping thing. That in and of itself is what had me captivated. Who would have thought the essence of horror is just having a frail woman sit in the dark with a burning match?
On top of that it has that old “added” creep factor of being BASED ON A TRUE STORY, which for most people makes them go “OH GOD this all happened! It could be true! I believe in ghosts THIS IS TEN TIMES SCARIER!”, but tends to make me tune out a bit because ghosts are such a silly damn thing to believe in. Especially ghosts that’d go around messing with you by clapping. It makes me think though that’s probably actually pretty accurate because If I was a ghost I know I’d go around clapping, and stomping and breathing heavily on people just to F with them. I’d be a real jerk of a ghost. I’d also only haunt hot chicks with huge beautiful breasts, but that’s neither here nor there. What was I talking about?
Right. The movie looks creepy as get out, and I look forward to seeing it come out, and I certainly hope that more horror follows the example seemingly set by this film, and James Wan in general. It’s time to lift up the preconceptions of the Horror genre and show everyone what it does best. I truly believe that at it’s best, Horror can successfully encompass all genres and lead the pack as the best of the bunch, immediately more captivating and engrossing than any paltry drama or “thriller”, which is a marketing term made up by movie companies who think “Horror” is a dirty word for a dirty genre. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m gonna go back to pretending to be a sexy ghost pervert. That’s a new fantasy for me!
Grizzly Bomb 