Unreality Companion: What I Hope for in the Growing Conjuring Franchise

In which I develop on the content of my weekly Unrealitymag.com article.

For Unreality this week, I reviewed Annabelle: a movie that, despite everything going against it, somehow still managed to be an all-around good horror movie.  As a prequel to The Conjuring, it developed the story of Annabelle - a doll acting as a conduit for a powerful demon - in a surprisingly lucid and pleasing way.  Given that a sequel is also on the way for the 2013 horror film - The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist - I thought that this was an opportune moment to reflect on what what I personally would like to see come out of this rapidly expanding franchise from Blumhouse Productions, a company that I've already identified as the only real name in horror these days.

First and foremost, I would like another prequel to The Conjuring.  We just got through with Annabelle, true, but that's not the prequel that I was referring to.  Annabelle was surprisingly good, but it was born from a introduction to the Warrens that, ultimately, nobody really cared about.  As I mentioned in my review of The Conjuring, she was simply a device used to lead into the film's real narrative and to bluntly spice up its third act.

The prequel that I want is an origin story for the Warrens: the first time that they met, leading into their first supernatural case together.  When we are introduced to them in The Conjuring, they are already fully formed: married with children, renowned in the field of demonology, experienced through their many cases together.  I want to see them as they were at the beginning: unknowns just starting out together, learning each others' strengths and weaknesses.  I want to see them stumble out of the gates, fall down from pure inexperience and pick themselves up with nothing but enthusiasm and a driving need to better the world.

Like Sherlock Holmes, The Conjuring feels like the second or third installment to their narrative, not the first.    There's a veritable treasure trove of possessed, haunted and otherwise demonically tainted items in the office at the East Coast home.  I want to see them at their true beginning: raw, inexperienced and ultimately triumphant.

For that matter, I want to see a film made of their failed exorcism: the one where the possessed man died and Lorraine was touched by the spirit inside of him.  Every time she uses her supernatural ability, Ed tells us, it takes a piece of her with it.  And in this case, it took an especially big piece.  Their failure sets up their dramatic victory against Bathsheba in The Conjuring, but why leave it only as a back story?  It certainly has more than enough dramatic potential to carry an entire film on its own, ending on a tragic note so profound that it scars the couple's very souls.

And, finally, we come to its true sequel: The Enfield Poltergeist.  So far, the production seems to have everything that it could want: a return of the original's director, writers and headlining actors.  I would hope that they would additionally bring back John Leonetti, the cinematographer that seems to be as slavishly devoted to James Wan as John Williams is to Steven Spielberg.

The only thing that I would want beyond that it a more tempered, more reserved James Wan.  Although an exceptional talent in the horror genre, he has previously demonstrated an overbearing presence as a director: not trusting his shots and atmosphere to do the job required, instead punctuating his tension with cheap jump scares.  Most notable is the first physical appearance of Bathsheba in The Conjuring, which featured a rapid zoom-in to a dissonant orchestral sting.  It is such a sloppy, schlocky scare that I still can't believe that the film recovered from the absurdity of it all.  If Wan comes to this sequel with confidence in his own abilities, there is absolutely no reason why it should not surpass the quality of the first film.

So what do you all want to see come out of this new horror series?  Do you want to explore the Warrens' past cases, or move forward with newer ones?  Do you want to see the same creative team behind the first film work on future ones?  What about the team that somehow turned Annabelle into a certifiable success?

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