Why I Love the Conjuring Series
Why I Love the Conjuring Series
My relationship with religion over time has had its ups and downs. I was baptized in a Catholic church, and attended a Catholic elementary school from kindergarten through fourth grade. Throughout this time, and especially in the later years of elementary school, I also attended a Methodist church with my family semi-regularly. All of this to say, the church was not a negligible aspect of my early life. Though I was never necessarily taught to take everything written in the Bible literally, I learned a lot about Christianity, its stories, and its values at a young age. I don’t remember a specific moment when I started believing in God, I just always did, partially because everyone around me did, and partially because I was quite literally taught to. Although I often found myself praying in my bed at night, and even worrying about the consequences of my sins, I would not say that I had an especially strong grip on my faith as a kid. I think this to be a rather excusable admittance; it is probably rare to find a child who is, with full conviction, truly God-fearing and devoted to their own faith. Once I began attending a non-religious middle school, I began to think about God and religion as a whole a lot less. I found church boring; the subjects simply did not interest me, and I disliked what I saw to be a disagreeably uptight culture surrounding Christianity. By the time I was in high school, I associated being strongly religious with a lack of fun, and because Chrisianity is often vilified amongst young people who are discovering that they are politically progressive and sympathetic to various countercultures, I was more or less turned off by the whole thing. I liked the idea of being “spiritual but not necessarily religious,” until I found that to be kind of overplayed and a vague cop-out for not having ones mind made up about their beliefs. At the same time, I never judged anybody for their religious beliefs, and disliked what I felt at the time to be the smugness that often comes with atheistic views and arguments.
It was not until I started college that I began to reassess my religious views. I had never before been surrounded by people who actually found much interest in discussing philosophy, religion, and politics. While I was fascinated by what people had to say about these topics, I realized that I myself did not have especially insightful contributions to make. Thus, I found myself often taking the position of a fly on the wall, absorbing views and points of arguments, quietly evaluating them, questioning my views on said topics, and forming more fleshed-out, definitive opinions on the things that I had neglected to truly stop and think about for many years. This was all only amplified by my experiences taking classes where I learned more deeply about answers to grand existential questions as well as arguments for and against the existence of God. I ended up coming to the conclusion that I believe in God very deeply, not necessarily in a strict Christian definition, but most definitely as an unimaginably vast and all-knowing higher power. I am far from being a perfect follower of any religion, and there is much that I have yet to learn about God along what I could essentially call my “spiritual journey,” but I have begun to actively think about God a lot more often. This has impacted how I view and analyze art as well; I feel more interested in films that explore aspects of man’s relationship with God and religion, and admittedly less excited by the idea of anti-religious films unless they truly have something meaningful to say. Through this lens, I have come to increasingly appreciate what has to be my favorite religious film I’ve ever seen, which is The Conjuring.
The better half of a decade ago, I wrote an essay for this website entitled “My Respect for (And Fear of) Horror Movies.” In it, I express my appreciation for the genre, while largely highlighting its twentieth century classics as favorites and dismissing much of contemporary horror. I see where I was coming from at the time; as a younger teenager just tipping my toes into horror, I was drawn to more accessible titles such as Friday the 13th and Halloween that would not scare me as much. I accused movies like Saw and Sinister of having “bad vibes.” The truth is, I had not even seen those films at the time and was just scared to watch them. I targeted The Conjuring as being a film of “awful hysteria and non-stop jump scares,” which is amusing to me now, especially because I don’t think I had seen it yet, either. It was not until the summer of 2021 that I actually first saw The Conjuring. I liked it just fine, but to say it was an immediate favorite would be a lie. I remember agreeing with a review I read which criticized the film for having too much dead space where nothing really scary happens, and too many fake-out jump scares that leave the viewer frustrated at the lack of pay-off. I can confidently say that I was not nearly the horror fan then that I am now, and thus almost all of my past criticisms I now retract after plenty of re-viewings of The Conjuring as well as loads of other horror movies. Naturally, as I wound up watching The Conjuring again at different points over the years, I began to like it more, and as I compared it to other horror films I’d seen, it slowly but surely rose in the ranks. Eventually, The Conjuring became one of my go-to choices to watch with people who had not seen a lot of horror films. At the time of my writing this, I can recall having watched The Conjuring in its entirety at least five times, if not more. The Conjuring, Sinister, and Insidious were like the holy trinity of crowd-pleaser horror movies to put on at late-night hangouts during high school (I’ve seen all three of those movies so many times, wow), and as I rewatched The Conjuring several more times in college, I realized how much more meaning I found within it because of its strong religious themes.
To get this out of the way, I have finally accepted and embraced the fact that The Conjuring is my favorite horror movie of all time (as well as one of my favorites of any genre, period). For the longest time I would offer up The Thing or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as my all-time favorite. Depending on the context I might have even presented a more flashy pick such as Skinamarink or Us; if I was trying to come across even slightly pretentious, perhaps Possession. While I truly love all of these films, which are all among my favorites as well, the truth is that if I could only watch one horror movie for the rest of my life, it would have to be The Conjuring. In my mind, it’s the perfect horror film. Sure, it’s a classic haunted house story, but it’s executed in a stronger and more robust way than most other films of the same vein. The characters have heart and personality, and the dynamics between them are gripping and make perfect sense for the story. The jump scares are not only earned but scary, and the “dead space” between the big scares creates a great atmosphere of suspense and dread. There are so many iconic moments, moments that have you on the edge of your seat, and moments that elicit that classic “oh my God” reaction. In this regard, I like to think of The Conjuring as a roller-coaster-esque experience; every time the film slows down a little bit and gives the audience time to breathe and just hang out with the characters as they exist in the moments when they aren’t actively being targeted by demonic forces, it is not long before the momentum picks back up again. The entertainment value is so high that it becomes a genuinely fun and enjoyable movie to watch in a way that cannot be said for the more gloomy 2010s classics like Sinister or Hereditary. While most of the film’s scariness factor has worn off for me now after so many viewings, there are still more than a few moments that certainly pass the scary test. There is one scene that ranks among my favorite handful of horror scenes ever; this is the scene where the two girls are in their bedroom at night, and one begins crying and pointing to the dark space behind the bedroom door, claiming she sees someone, or something, standing there. The sister does not see what is behind the door, and neither does the audience. But anybody who can remember sitting in their bedroom at night as a kid, paralyzed with fear thinking about what could be lurking in the shadows, can understand that viscerally mortifying feeling. It’s a relatively small yet powerful scene in a film which is scary and effective in many different ways, which I will talk more about later.
The heart and soul of the Conjuring series is without a doubt the two lead characters, Ed and Lorraine Warren (played to perfection by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). For anybody who has not seen any of the films, the Warrens are a husband and wife who have devoted their lives to being demonologists, traveling from haunted home to haunted home, helping to rid inhabitants of their demonic issues. In simple terms, they are ghost busters, but ones who both feel called, very strongly and deeply, by God to fight against evil. Ed is the only non-ordained demonologist officially recognized by the Catholic Church, and Lorraine is a clairvoyant who can sense demonic presences and see visions of the spirits. It is important to note that Ed and Lorraine Warren were real people who actually did this, and that each of the Conjuring films is based on a specific real-life case of theirs. While the real story of the Warren family is much more troubled and depressing, its existence only makes the movie version more inspiring and invigorating. It is the idea of having such confidence and strength in one’s faith that makes Ed and Lorraine such strong characters. Both feel so compelled by their faith to do their work that they devote their lives to doing it. The only thing that ever makes them hesitate to fight evil is their mutual concern for each other’s safety, and even then, their attitude is “God brought us together for a reason. This is it.” Ed and Lorraine go to great lengths to follow God into the dark, guided and protected by little other than their own unwavering faith. Their deep love for one another also gives the Conjuring films a romantic element that only elevates every single story. Watching these two people work together and care for one another not only gets the audience invested, but is genuinely inspiring. I always say that the Conjuring series is a religious romance story almost first and foremost. I think it could also be said that the Warrens are like the ultimate horror protagonists. In so many horror films, the main character is not even close to being the most memorable or important aspect of the story; that is not the case here. Both are strong and relatable characters who are easy to care about, and both are role models in their own right. Ed, who in lesser filmmaking hands could have easily been portrayed as the dumb brawn of the duo, is the tough, God-fearing, wife-loving family man. Lorraine is the benevolent motherly figure who sticks to her principles and isn’t afraid to be seen as an outsider. I can hardly think of other characters in horror who so strongly represent good in the face of evil.
While I’ve mostly talked specifically about the original Conjuring so far, I want to also give a major shoutout to the other films in the series. The Conjuring 2 is another great horror movie, and is often cited as the second best for a reason. It doesn’t hold that place for me (it’s simply just not as scary, and it probably is slightly too long), but what it honestly does hold is a place in my heart as a film I’ve also seen numerous times and have never gotten tired of. The third film, The Devil Made Me Do It, is where common consensus would have you believe the series drops in quality, but I definitely disagree. While perhaps not as much of a standout as the first two, Devil Made Me is, as I see it, an important part of the series because of the extent to which it points out the nature of the evils that the Warrens are up against. Is there any evil in the world greater than the work of Satan? Part of why the Conjuring series is so great is because it isn’t about a psycho killer or a fantastical monster; the Warrens are literally fighting against the most prevalent and powerful evils of the world. In a sense, it doesn’t get much scarier than that. Related to what I was saying earlier about the scene where the girl points to the darkness behind the door, there is a well-crafted balance between two very strong and valuable types of horror within these films, which are what I think of as spiritual existential horror and subconscious, deep-within horror. I’ve been talking this whole time about how the Conjuring series is such an incredible saga of faith onscreen, but you don’t have to find that idea appealing to be fully scared and invigorated by these films. Yes, they appeal to fears surrounding faith in the face of sin and evil, but they duly tap into that childlike fear of the dark and the unknown; in a way, these can go together, and if any films conjoin these two things, it is this series.
I saw the fourth Conjuring movie, Last Rites, in theaters a few months ago and loved it. It seems that many critics found it to be a tired and half-hearted sequel that was made simply for the sake of giving the franchise a big conclusion-type film, but to me, it works as the perfect finale for the entire story. Last Rites finally addresses my biggest and only substantial criticism of the series, which is the absence of the Warrens’ daughter, Judy. Judy Warren is an appropriately significant aspect of Last Rites; her character is given such a compelling storyline in the film, and the mother-daughter themes are a huge success. Lorraine trying to protect Judy from the evils she knows exist, and then finally working with her to fight against them as Judy has grown up, is the perfect icing on the cake for a story that is ultimately about the powers of faith, especially how faith can be a large part of the dynamic between people. Faith can be so strongly tied to love, and that is kinda what the Conjuring movies are all about. Faith and love can be such significant aspects of a person’s ability to find value in a meaningful life. That is a large part of why these movies mean so much to me; they are a real reminder of these ideas, especially considering that they are based on true stories. As I’ve come to embrace faith as an increasingly important part of my life, it is compelling to see it portrayed as such a powerful force in blockbuster movies like these. The Conjuring films will always have a place in my heart.
