enigmo69

I have seen a great many horror films, far more than is probably healthy. I have seen some excellent ones, many good ones, a great many terrible ones, but remarkably few boring ones.

This, most definitely, falls into that last category.

After rewatching the excellent Conjuring again I decided to go through the whole series in release order, and what a fall from grace!

The characters are so two dimensional even the familiarity of cliché is largely lost. The father basically doesn't need to be in the movie, he brings so little to the proceedings. The mother never feels desperate to save her family. The priest held so much potential but again was effectively pointless. Of them all, I wanted to see more of the bookshop owner, but again, too little too late.

The effects, such as there were, were OK. The lift scene was pretty good, and the girl running through the door scene (if you've seen it, you know it) was very well done, but everything else was... boring. Long, lingering shots of a doll (that doesn't move). Occasional glimpses of a demon\devil\monster (that was unthreatening). The occasional child giggling far off, because why not; babies are known to giggle like 5 year olds.

Even the setting was lacking. The Conjuring *felt* like the 1970s. This film just proves you need more than a few old background cars and a knackered radio to give that vibe.

Overall, this felt like two films: The first 40mins is a haunted house movie, the next 50mins is a monster movie, and neither of them are scary or particularly well done. I could have excused a great deal if I'd been given characters I could root for or sympathise with, an antagonist to fear or hate, or even effects to be impressed by if I was really desperate. This gave none of that.

Have I seen worse horror movies? Yes, absolutely. But it's a rare thing to find one that made me seriously consider giving up half way through.

Just seen this at a horror festival (like, literally a few hours ago at the end of a very long night of other films) and was blown away at how absorbing I found the whole thing from start to finish. It's always fascinating to listen to anyone talking about any subject they are honestly passionate about, but these guys just appear to be a history of horror from 1980 to the present day in and of themselves, as well as an impressive gamut of non-horror films from the last 20 years. The directors they have worked with, the projects they have worked on, and the skill they bring to the craft are all on show in this brilliant bit of documentary filmmaking and make it worth watching whether you are interested in the craft, history, or just expanding general horror knowledge. I'm deducting one mark simply because I would have liked more detail on the evolving mix of traditional model making and CGI in new horror films even though it was touched on, as well as a bit more detail on some of their past projects that have since become genre set-pieces or examplars of the craft, but that may have made a 3hr doc and may not have been the directors intention. But besides, utterly compelling, even to someone who did not expect much and was exhausted at the viewing!