The Conjuring (2013)

"Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren work to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in their farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives."

I've finally done it! I may be two weeks behind everyone else in the world, but I've now seen "The Conjuring"! I even managed to avoid all the spoilers on Twitter and Facebook beforehand, which wasn't easy considering how overhyped this movie has been.

Supposedly based on a previously unpublished case file from paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who I've never actually heard of before, "The Conjuring" starts off like an episode of "Friday the 13th: The Series", turns into a clone of "The Amityville Horror" for an hour, and ends up as a twenty minute version of "The Exorcist". As you can imagine, I was not impressed.

In fact, I was so disappointed with "The Conjuring" that I was tempted to only write the following for my review:

BORING CRAP!

If someone perusing the aisles next to me in a DVD store were to ask me what I thought of "The Conjuring", those two words would be the most honest initial reaction I could come up with other than adding whichever choice expletive I might deem appropriate to the situation. I'm not saying that this has happened, although it certainly has done with other James Wan movies in the past, and the response of the person asking has also been equally negative. I'm sure that similar conversations have transpired between other people in various locations.

Maybe I live in my own sheltered little bubble where everyone shares the same good taste, but I've never known of a director other than James Wan whose movies are so consistently underwhelming apart from Christopher Nolan. Even Zack Snyder has double the amount of good movies on his résumé. I'm not going to acknowledge Dario Argento, Uwe Boll, Lloyd Kaufman, or Ulli Lommel because, let's face it, all their movies are guaranteed to be crap from the get-go.

A metaphor just waiting to happen.

The reasons why "The Conjuring" is such boring crap are very easy to list. For a start, the story is unoriginal and clichéd, and it's a messy fusion of far better films that came out over 30 to 40 years ago. We've seen it all before ad nauseum. "The Conjuring" brings nothing new to the table and doesn't even present what it has got in an entertaining manner for adults.

Thus, the second huge problem with "The Conjuring" is that it might as well be a PG-13. How and why it got an R-rating is beyond my comprehension. There's no nudity, no swearing, no sex scenes, no gore, and it's not scary in any way. So how the Hell did it get rated as an R? "R for Rubbish" is my assessment although I'm betting on failed bait and switch shenanigans behind the scenes with the MPAA just to get asses on seats in the movie theatres.

The big giveaway that the target audience was initially meant to be braindead teenagers is the amount of grammatical errors in the script. Both Lorraine and Ed get away with saying "hung" instead of "hanged" without anyone correcting them, and if that's not bad enough, there's Ed's immortal triple-negative, "We ain't never seen nothing like this!" which you can see in the trailer along with all the other "good bits". The terrible dialogue is almost as bad as the "I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do" line in the shitty "Evil Dead" remake. No wonder the mumble-mouthed younger generation are the way they are!

Thirdly, there's no characterisation whatsoever. I couldn't tell you the names of any of the characters even though they were given, what they might be interested in other than ghost hunting or being the victims of a demonic haunting, or any details that would make them more than two-dimensional. The best I can come up with is that "The Conjuring" stars Patrick Wilson with sideburns, Vera Farmiga looking far more beautiful than I've ever seen her look before, the Peter guy from "Office Space", the plain-looking girl who played Nell in "The Haunting" remake whose name I always forget, and a bunch of other people who I've never heard of poncing about in a badly maintained American house. If you think I'm joking, try telling me the names of the family members without looking them up on the IMDb. While you are at it, what are the names of the cop or the Warren's assistant? No idea? Case proven.

Without characterisation, what's the point of a horror movie? If you can't identify with the protagonists, empathising with their situation and feeling the catharsis when it's resolved is completely lost, isn't it? Or is this something that kids today just don't care about? As much as anyone born after 1989 is likely to be a complete moron in my estimation anyway, there are exceptions who must have left the cinema as disappointed as us older guys. Even the ones who only went to see some scary effects must have felt cheated of their $10.

Vera Farmiga is so hot in her granny clothes!

I wish I could find something good to say about "The Conjuring", but it's a typical James Wan movie. There are a couple of overloud jump scares which don't work, the usual creepy dolls which aren't creepy at all, some guy in a latex witch mask which is supposed to be scary, horrible shaky camerawork (but with lots of zooming this time just to be very '70s!), irritating child actors, poor CGI effects, plotholes everywhere, no atmosphere, no tension, total chaos at the end with a lame resolution, and nothing original whatsoever. The tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of Blumhouse Productions' formulaic style of composition when the family mentions birds hitting their house (as in "Dark Skies") is realised when the birds repeat their kamikaze attack near the end, but you can't make in-jokes like that when you do the same damned thing yourself!!!

I suppose the period setting in 1970s America is well done, but that's not exactly a difficult thing to achieve. Apart from the cars, America looks much the same as it has done since the 1920s when it comes to the crappy wooden sheds which people jokingly refer to as houses. Every house in my town looks like the one in "The Conjuring" only in an even worse state of disrepair! Forget nostalgia, these firetraps need to be knocked down and replaced with some proper bricks and mortar! I'm sure that I've mentioned that several time before on this blog though.

I'm not happy about James Wan using a cover version of "Sleepwalk" with lyrics either. The original Santo & Johnny instrumental from 1959 which is such a signature feature of Stephen King's "Sleepwalkers" (1992) just doesn't belong anywhere else! The guitars in "Sleepwalk" even sound like cats meowing for God's sake! But, in spite of having a witch in the story, there are no cats in "The Conjuring"! There's a collie dog called Sadie who meets her maker off camera, but no cats! Oh, that makes me so angry!

The word on the street is that James Wan is giving up horror movies now to make the next homoerotic installment in "The Fast and the Furious" franchise. I wish him the best of luck, but after "The Conjuring", I can't say that he will be missed.

King of the Castle (1977)

There are some TV programmes from my childhood which I thought I'd only imagined even though I fondly remembered important parts of them. On the other hand, there are quite a few which I wish really did only exist in my imagination because watching them as an adult makes me cringe. HTV's "King of the Castle" has a foot in both camps because, having spent a few hours today rewatching it, it's not something that I ever want to see again.

If you've never heard of "King of the Castle", here's the blurb from Amazon:

Macabre, fantastical and a benchmark production for children's television in the 1970s, King of the Castle was created by Doctor Who stalwarts Bob Baker and Dave Martin as one of the run of outstanding children's dramas HTV produced in that decade. Featuring strong direction and a script which expertly melds fantasy and reality, the series boasts solid performances from genre stalwarts Fulton Mackay, Milton Johns and Talfryn Thomas as well as Philip Da Costa as the series' hero, Roland. One of the most memorable television series of the '70s is available here, for the very first time in any video format. Episode three no longer exists in the archive in any format and the version included on this set is taken from an off-air VHS.

I'm not sure what I was looking for on YouTube when I discovered that the whole "King of the Castle' series had been uploaded by several people, but I was in one of those moods where I randomly click on the recommended videos until I end up watching some very strange channels indeed. Before I found "King of the Castle", I'd been watching highly embarrassing episodes of "Grange Hill", "Chocky" and "The Tomorrow People" and feeling dirty about doing so. If there's anyone of a similar age to me who didn't see at least one of those when they were originally shown then they probably didn't have a television.

Since I didn't recognise the title of "King of the Castle", all I remembered from the series to identify it was that the kid who got beaten up by bullies had a model kit of Frankenstein's monster, and somehow he ended up in a dungeon ruled by some ratty-looking guy who told him to always go up if he wanted to escape. What I'd forgotten was how the story was filled with clever socio-political subtext and commentary which I'm ashamed to say that I still don't quite understand even as an adult.

The big messages of the fantasy part of "King of the Castle" are apparently that work is pointless, comfort and ignorance is bliss, and there's too much bureaucracy in the world. There's a lot of Oedipal stuff going on too whereby the hero, Roland, has to take his father's role by force and has a crush of some kind on his stepmother. The latter doesn't surprise me in the slightest since Angela Richards, who plays the dual role of June and the Lady, is absolutely gorgeous.

Very recognisable faces include Fulton Mackay (the prison officer from "Porridge") as a Frankenstein-style scientist, Milton Johns as his monster, creepy Talfryn Thomas as the ratty-looking caretaker, and Jamie Foreman (who now plays Derek Branning in "Eastenders") as Ripper the bully. Bizarrely, I didn't recognise the lead, Philip Da Costa, as being the same guy who went on to play Jackson in "Scum" (1979).

In spite of the badly-timed, obviously stagey acting, and cheap sets which look better than the cardboard and curtains that they are really made of, "King of the Castle" isn't a bad piece of kids' entertainment for the time. Unfortunately, as a grown-up, I can see that it's really just a slightly darker, and very British, rip-off of "The Wizard of Oz" with the genders of the protagonists changed. Both nostos stories go back to Homer's "The Odyssey" anyway, but let's not get too highbrow about them.

One thing which really irritated me, perhaps because I've been away from Britain for so long, was the choirboy singing the "I'm the king of the castle, and you're a dirty rascal" theme tune which is full of the mispronounced "Estuary English" which I despise. It sounds like "I'm the king of the CARsul, and you're a dirty RARscul". Ugh. I hate that and "BARth" instead of "bath", "GLARss" instead of "glass", and the "someFINK" instead of "something" which even Gordon Ramsay has fallen prey too. I've always noticed it, but maybe it doesn't show up so much when you are constantly surrounded by it or you're a bit thick.

I don't recommend "King of the Castle" although I've embedded it as a playlist at the top of this post. It's not an accurate reflection of life in Britain in the late 1970s or anything, and it's certainly not scary for anyone over 7 years old. If you are into nostalgia, it's interesting to see a "Hammer Horror" magazine and a "Howard the Duck" comic at one point, but that's about it really.

Isn't it funny what you can find on YouTube when you are looking for something else? If only I could remember the name of that weird poltergeist story with a load of cushions flying around a room which I caught the last five minutes of. Whatever it was that left the image of someone tied to a chair with a washing line and a bottle of Sarson's malt vinegar stuck in their mouth is another matter.

Ghost Stories for Christmas - Part 2

More nostalgia from the golden age of British TV horror. Watch them while you can!

As you will see, the quality of these dramas peaked then dropped significantly in later years until the BBC gave up on the idea.


The Signalman (1976)



"A railway signalman tells a curious traveller how he is being troubled by a ghostly spectre that seems to predict calamity."


Stigma (1977)



"After a young couple move into a remote country house in the middle of a stone circle, workmen disturb an ancient menhir, unleashing a supernatural force."


The Ice House (1978)



"Residents at a health spa begin to suspect a strange flower growing in an old ice house in the grounds may be the cause of a series of misfortunes."


Schalcken the Painter (1979)



"Schalcken the painter sees his one true love, Rose, wedded by contract for a sum of money to a man who may or may not be a demon. When she escapes and returns home, she is pursued by her demon lover."


Casting the Runes (1979) - a bonus from ITV



"After a television series lampoons a famous demonologist, its producer and cast soon find themselves threatened by mysterious, malevolent forces."


Tomorrow, I'll post the final "Ghost Stories for Christmas" which the BBC vainly tried to revive as a series in the mid 2000s.

Ghost Stories for Christmas - Part 1

I've talked about them a lot on this blog so here's your chance to enjoy some of the most terrifying ghost stories ever shown on TV.

Break out the Harvey's Bristol Cream, Twiglets and cheesy footballs with earwax in the middle, and prepare to soil yourself all over again!


The Stalls of Barchester (1971)



"An ambitious cleric murders an aged Archdeacon at Barchester Cathedral. However, he is soon being stalked by a sinister black cat and by a hooded figure both of whom seem to be embodiments of carvings on the cathedral's choir stalls."


A Warning to the Curious (1972)



"An amateur archaeologist travels to a remote seaside town in Norfolk to search for the lost crown of Anglia, but after unearthing it is haunted by a mysterious black figure."


Lost Hearts (1973)



"An orphan moves into the house of his uncle, but is disturbed by visions of a pair of ghostly children. Is their message a warning to be fearful of his uncle's obsession with immortality?"


The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974)



"A respected theologian and his protégé unearth clues to find the hidden treasure of a disgraced monk in an abbey library. Should he have heeded his own advice not to go treasure hunting?"


The Ash Tree (1975)



"An aristocrat inherits his family estate and is haunted by visions of his ancestor's role in a witchcraft trial."


I'll post another four tomorrow.

Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972)

"Johnny Alucard raises Count Dracula (Christopher Lee) from the dead in 1972 London. The Count goes after the descendants of Van Helsing."

It's hardly a secret that I prefer Hammer horror movies over absolutely anything American or European from the same time period. I grew up watching Hammer movies on TV and probably saw them all at least a dozen times each before I left school.

As much as I've wanted to like the classic Universal monster movies from the '30s and '40s, black and white has never done it for me. I like my films in colour otherwise I wouldn't have a colour TV. If there's one thing you can be sure of with a Hammer production, that's lots of colour. There are always lots of boobs and blood too which is a bonus especially in something now rated PG.

I'm sure you are so familiar with "Dracula A.D. 1972" that I don't need to go through all the rigmarole of telling you who does what to who and why. It's yet another tale of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in their famous roles as Count Dracula and Professor Van Helsing respectively but with a new angle (for the time) of being set (after a 19th century prologue) in the 1970s.

This was Hammer's attempt at modernising Dracula which worked in spite of itself and the fact that Christopher Lee really didn't want to have anything to do with it. The vampire Count isn't actually in "Dracula A.D. 1972" very much at all and only delivers about ten lines. Forget Bram Stoker's novel as much as you can because this "Dracula" is far more Hammer's invention.

Most of the action involves a gang of "young people" getting up to all sorts of mischief such as crashing parties, smoking pot, and hanging out in a coffee bar all day. I hate to use the term "hipsters" for them because that would imply that they are cool. If any of them had a brain, they'd be typical students.

Their leader, Johnny Alucard (Christopher Neame) is, of course, a disciple of Dracula who comes across as half Alex from "A Clockwork Orange" and half Austin Powers (before Austin Powers ever existed). I haven't posted a picture of Johnny Alucard because, to be honest, his character is so overacted that the ludicrous expressions he pulls throughout would make you think that "Dracula A.D. 1972" is a comedy when it really isn't.

Here's a nice picture of Caroline Munro about to be baptised in blood instead:

Caroline Munro only has a small but important role in the movie. Unfortunately, she doesn't get nude or turn into a vampiress which is a bit of a shame. I would have loved to have seen her sprout fangs and bite a couple of the other hot girls in the movie. Alas, it was not meant to be.

The story moves along at such a brisk pace that there's plenty of other entertainment apart from the vampirism anyway. Just looking at the sets or the clothes (or watching the background to see some of London in 1972) is quite educational. The number of "day for night" shots which nobody ever seems to pick up are rather clumsy and cause a few inconsistencies, but whatever, it's still Hammer.

The various action scenes are quite energetic and are more than adequate to tell the story. "Dracula A.D. 1972" doesn't suffer from too much talk although several scenes are unnecessary. The one where Van Helsing reverses the name of "Alucard" on a piece of paper as if it's some hugely difficult anagram springs to mind.

Although there isn't anything which you could really call character development in "Dracula A.D. 1972", the closest to it is done by the lovely Stephanie Beacham who is also, for lack of a better word, quite "pneumatic". Her boobies are the stars of the show and a lot of her screen time is devoted to semi-gratuitously showing her cleavage off in close-up. The artifice of putting crucifixes round her neck and ripping them off again twice fools no-one.

Anyway, with only 6 days left until Hallowe'en, "Dracula A.D. 1972" is the last vampire movie in my "Hallowe'en Countdown". Last year, I recommended the original Hammer "Dracula" (1958), but I now think "Dracula A.D. 1972" with Johnny Alucard's occult ritual suits the season better.