James Wan's horror film "The Conjuring" series has successfully integrated Asian horror films into European and American horror films, creating a new genre for European and American horror films.
Bo Guang has written European and American horror films before. Apart from psychological suspense films such as "Shutter Island", horror science fiction films such as "Alien", zombie films, vampires and werewolves, the main focus is thrillers. As far as horror films are concerned, there are probably two of the most popular European and American horror films.
One is the sensory stimulation of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
The definition of this kind of movie is very simple, it is to dismember and kill a large number of human beings, and the shots are often very intuitive. In the movie, broken limbs are flying around and blood is splattered. The movie seems to be a large-scale human anatomy class.
The background of this kind of story is not important, such as "Fatal Turn", "The Mountain Has Eyes", "Human Skin Inn", "Horror Wax Museum", "Saw" and so on.
The second is the supernatural horror genre of "The Exorcist"
"Ghost" and "supernatural" are also the most widely seen cultural elements in Asian horror films, and European and American horror films also have " "Ghost", but their culture is different and they are often called "demon".
Those who fight against demons are religious priests, knights and exorcists. In addition to "demon", it can also be extended to things like "witches", "vampires" and "werewolves".
This genre was promoted by "The Exorcist" in 1973. Later, European and American thrillers were all about exorcism, and there were a lot of demons on the screen.
So, what’s different about James Wan’s “The Conjuring”?
Perhaps because director James Wan is Asian, this film perfectly blends Asian horror films with European and American religious exorcism horror films.
Before James Wan's "The Conjuring", could European and American horror films represent "ghost" cultural elements?
The answer is very few. Even in Europe and America, they usually show the abnormal state of "demons" possessing the human body, and occasionally enter hell, which is also a demon imp in the form of a skeleton like "Hell Detective" , there are very few humanized ghost images.
Although the movie "The Conjuring" is adapted from real historical events, it tells the story of Rowling and Warren, who have been engaged in exorcism for decades, traveled around the world, and participated in thousands of exorcisms. A case of evil spirits possessing or ghosts harassing humans.
Annabelle’s case can be regarded as the couple’s most famous supernatural case.
This movie is not about the story of Annabelle. The protagonists, the Perrons, moved to an old house because of family financial problems. Of course, the couple had several naughty children, and the children in this family were special. Many, five daughters in total.
After thinking about it, Americans are not so "son-preferential", so why does this family have so many daughters?
As soon as a family moved into this house, the children accidentally opened a wooden board while playing hide-and-seek with clapping hands, and then found the basement where things were stored.
After this, the family encountered many strange things. First, their dog died suddenly, and then the little girls encountered it. For example, when a girl was sleeping, her feet were suddenly pulled, and she smelled an unpleasant rotten odor.
Of course, the horror index of the movie gradually escalates. The second upgrade was when the sleeping daughter had her legs pulled twice. This time she woke up, and her sister who was sleeping with her also woke up and said she saw a ghost behind the door.
The two girls were frightened, but their parents still didn’t believe it at first, until there was a daughter who was sleepwalking. While sleepwalking, she walked to the eldest sister’s room and kept banging against the cabinet. After the eldest sister put her sister on the bed, the devil Appeared for the first time.
The family finally realized something was wrong. Her mother found the Rowlings through a supernatural communication class. After they came and walked around, Rowling saw ghosts everywhere in the house because of her "yin and yang eyes". .
There are many ghosts surrounding the family, including those of the children, the master and the mistress.
They found the police and an Asian guy and put down a lot of equipment used to shoot ghosts. An exorcist came, but the demon refused to restrain itself. My daughter, who was sleepwalking at night, ran to the window to wait for her to be rescued.
Rowling entered the closet inside the display window, discovered the secret of the music box, and then fell into the basement. The bloated nanny, then the devil of the original owner finally shows up.
And the Asian guy also took pictures of everything. After dawn, of course the family had to take their children and leave the shabby house. The Rowlings ran to the priest to find a solution, but the priest said that the child had not been baptized and was not within his scope of responsibility.
So, the monotheistic religion is so paranoid. If you don’t believe in it, it will never protect you.
The Rowlings had no choice but to go back. There was a little incident at home, and they solved the problem after returning home. After receiving the call, I discovered that something had happened to the family. The mother had been possessed by a demon and had returned to the old house with her child.
Everyone hurried over. The reason why the mother took away the two children was because there were too many children. It would be unscientific to take five of them, and it would cause chaos if there were too many people. Not easy to control.
After Rowling and others arrived at the scene, the demon-possessed mother was about to kill her daughter with scissors, but was caught by everyone, and then began the exorcism mode.
This method of exorcism is still the usual "Exorcist" model in European and American movies, which involves reading the Bible, holding a cross, and exorcising demons in the name of the Father, Mary, and Son.
"The Conjuring" adds a twist to the process. For example, the female ghost possessed by the devil is extremely powerful and can shoot automatically, and even summons some crows.
Lastly, the little girl was very worried. When everyone was looking for her, she ran into the mezzanine. When the Asian guy found it, he roared just enough to alert the devil. The devil crawled in to find the little girl and wanted to kill it with his own hands. female.
But after Warren finished reciting the exorcism words at the end, and then Rowling used the "Mother" gesture to initiate, and defeated the devil by awakening the hostess's own soul, the movie ended.
On the whole, "The Conjuring" is still covered in historical events and proceeds in the same way as European and American horror films like "The Exorcist". The main difference from this type of horror film is its focus on Demonic manifestations, to methods of exorcism.
In addition to giving ghosts a formal form, "The Conjuring 1" has rarely shown them directly in previous European and American movies. But there are still very few people who directly show ghosts face to face and then defeat them.
"The Conjuring" pioneered this model. In "The Conjuring 1", it was not obvious to defeat ghosts. In "The Conjuring 2", the heroine Rowling really entered the world of ghosts through the media world, and then Bring the soul back.
The expression of this ghost space is very similar to the expression of the underworld in Asian horror films. Traditional European and American horror films rarely or even do not express it at all.
For example, the ghost who died tragically, to the spooky space and scenery, the powerful ghost who appears and disappears, and then the protagonist uses knowledge to defeat the ghost, and finally returns to the world with his soul.
In short, the success of James Wan's "The Conjuring" series is mainly due to the integration of Asian horror films into European and American horror films, and a very appropriate localized integration, which is very successful.
For more questions about "The Conjuring", everyone is welcome to pay attention and discuss!