Got a pair of horrors in the books that I liked...some thoughts on
The Conjuring 3 and
Caveat:
So yall don't need much intro for
The Conjuring 3, it's the third of arguably Wan's most notable franchise (among the many notables). The Conjuring follows a similar style of the first two, we're introduced to the characters and haunting before Ed and Lorraine Warren really step in and take on the haunting. This one managed to step up the stakes a good deal. First, you've got Ed and Lorraine dealing with living cultists which gives the threats more physical presence than ever (I'm pretty sure this is the first Conjuring with actual deaths but correct me if I'm wrong). Second, it builds in multiple cases off the devil worship motif which helps take the story out of one location and expand it across a few scary locations and events.
So lemme jump off by saying, the director was the guy who did The Curse of La Llorona which I thought was pretty crappy. So I came in worried about the tone, but I was pleasantly surprised. Despite a new director, it captures the feel and vibes of the other two. It does have more mystery vibes than the prior two, but I think that actually helps to keep it fresh. The scares themselves are also damned good. The Conjuring movies do a great job of letting you know a scare is coming, but then playing the moment out slowly enough for you to be at the edge of your seat by the team things get crazy. The Ed and Lorraine chemistry is always great too and references to other bits of the universe ("come by the house for dinner and meet Annabelle...") work as nice easter eggs that don't feel forced. It's a legitimate Conjuring movie with a bigger scope and more powerful threats.
That also carries the same flaws as the other films. The haunted family goes from a main focus to secondary as soon as the Warrens arrive, which I understand but have never liked. The story runs just a little longer than necessary for my taste with all three films. The other thing is that i think the best scares in the Conjuring all come from subtle starts that build to a big payoff...but the conclusions have to up the ante and lose any subtlety every damned time (this is kind of an issue I have with most Wan movies and most horror in general though, so it's more of a me problem I think). Anyway, these aren't really that bad. They're nitpicks on a franchise that's really good and worth a watch.
So high grades for the Conjuring 3. I like it better than part 2, not quite as much as part 1. I enjoyed the tweak of adding human threats into the mix while keeping the tone and style intact. If you're a fan of this universe, it's a great trip back and among the best that whole Warren universe has to offer.
Now onto...
Next up,
Caveat, does something that I generally hate. It's an ambiguous movie full of bread crumbs without any definitive explanations...but I quite enjoyed this super vague story for a change. The plot follows a man who has lost most of his memory in an accident, when an "old friend" (he has no way of being sure) comes by and offers a ton of cash to essentially babysit his mentally ill, grown niece. The man accepts before realizing that there were some "caveats" to the deal in the form of babysitting at a house on a remote piece of land surrounded by water (our protagonist can't swim btw) and also...the man has to chain himself in a harness that limits his ability to travel into certain rooms of the house. That's to protect the mentally ill niece of course
.
Okay, so the premise sounds kinda dumb. Who would agree to this? But it kinda works because we have this aimless dude with no memories that's trying to piece together his past. He's now trapped in a house, then trapped on a mini-island, with a girl whose schizophrenic...and owns a crossbow. Meanwhile, we're left in the literal and figurative dark just like the main character. He makes grizzly discoveries that create more questions than answers and to complicate matters, there are no reliable narrators. We learn the story from a friend that clearly lies or at minimum keeps secrets, a girl who goes from catatonic to normal to threatening and violent with each changing scene, and a man who can't remember who he is.
But the disorienting feelings of every damned scene in this movie actually help the creepy vibe more than any gratuitous scares might. The imagery itself is constantly claustrophobic and uncomfortable. The rabbit that makes up a lot of the ads...that's the visual feel of this entire movie. Everything feels slightly off, almost but not-quite dreamlike. It's slow, sometimes it feels like it's setting you up for a scare before just cutting to something else, and your sense of time or reality even is completely blasted out the window. It's confusing, frustrating, and leaves you just as powerless as the idiot who let himself be locked up in a chained harness.
Which brings me to downsides. Character choices...bad...very bad. You can kinda give it the "they're desperate and confused" pass, but even that doesn't explain some of the actions that people take in this. It also gives you a lot of clues, but never bothers to parse out which were legitimate and which weren't. There's an undercurrent of supernatural but the film just doesn't bother to let you know whether that was in people's heads or not. You can piece this narrative together ten different ways...but I kinda like that the clues do all fit together. It's a jigsaw puzzle where you could shift some pieces around and make a completely different image. That's before bothering to exploring deeper meanings and symbolism too, I didn't have the brain bandwidth to spare on that with first viewing.
So yeah...i could see a lot of people not liking this joint because it's minimalistic and the story is purposely obtuse. But the sense of dread that it builds is among the best I've seen during the horror drought of this damned pandemic. It's entirely possible that a writer had some cool ideas and just used a vague plot to get from one good moment to the next; but I felt like there was more to uncover and want to dive back in. I won't suggest it for everyone, but I could see a nice following and some serious overthinking from fans. I liked it!
So a solid past couple of weeks of horror for me. These last two were fun, I liked but didn't love Spiral, and enjoyed A Quiet Place 2 also. Now I've got that Romero flick, the Carnival and a few others to peep next. I'm hitting a mini-vacation tomorrow so hopefully more of a backlog builds and I can go HAM when i get back.
