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How ‘The Conjuring’ Universe Defined a Decade of Horror

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*Keep up with our ongoing end of the decade coverage here*

Every decade has a certain set of horror movies that define it. That certain group of movies that hits the right tone, captures audiences perfectly and is the first thing that you think of when that particular time period comes up. For the 70s, it was those movies that pushed the envelope and broke new ground in an uncertain era – The Exorcist. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. For the 80s, it was the slasher cycle. Hundreds of slasher films came and went over a few short years, but the big franchises stand out in front for the way they created characters that would last and become the new faces of horror – Halloween, Friday the 13th and the Nightmare on Elm Street films. In the 90s, we saw a return to masked killers that also incorporated a witty writing style and casts of chic young actors. The Scream franchise led the way. In the 2000s, we saw a rise in ultra-violent films like the Saw series and the Hostel films.

As we wrap up the 2010s, it’s interesting to look back and see how horror has changed and what was really popular during this period. Of all the movies that were released this decade, the ones that will most define this period will be the films of The Conjuring Universe.

What began in 2013 with a single ghost story has ballooned to be one of the most successful horror franchises of all time. In keeping with the current trend of cinematic universes (which will also mark this decade), the series has developed beyond simply a series of sequels and has created its own web of stories that has spanned six years and seven films, and continues to grow.


The Conjuring (2013)

The road to bringing The Conjuring to the screen was a long one, beginning about 20 years prior, when producer Tony DeRosa-Grund met with Ed Warren to discuss the case of the Perron Family – the story that the script would come to be based on. DeRosa-Grund tried to get the film made for years, but it never quite materialized. Deals were formed with Golden Circle Films (who had made A Haunting in Connecticut, based on another of the Warrens’ cases) and Summit Entertainment, but nothing ever made it to the finish line. Finally, a deal was struck with New Line, James Wan was brought on board to direct and produce the script from Chad and Carey Hayes, and the story finally made it to the screen. 

Set in the 1970s, the story followed the Perron family as they move into a farmhouse in rural Rhode Island, only to discover that the property has a dark history, as a malevolent entity begins to threaten their family. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga were cast in the roles of Ed and Lorraine Warren, and offer up a duo that is not only defined by their ghost hunting, but by their chemistry and relationship to one another. Their kindness is front and center throughout the film and gives the characters depth in a way that is not commonly explored in films like this. 

The Conjuring won over audiences and critics alike, opening the door for New Line to not only make sequels, but to expand the story out in multiple directions simultaneously.


Annabelle (2014)

From there, as they were developing a sequel to The Conjuring, New Line also decided to create a spin-off film based on the Annabelle Doll that made a brief appearance at the beginning of the first film. Since the most famous story of the doll was already told during that scene, screenwriter Gary Dauberman chose to create an origin story for the doll, in which she starts out as an antique in a child’s bedroom, but becomes possessed by a malevolent spirit after a cult member breaks into the house and dies by suicide in the room where Annabelle is kept. The homeowners, John and Mia, find themselves plagued by the entity and eventually learn that it intends to take a human soul. 

The film did well financially, but was a big disappointment for fans of The Conjuring, as it lacked both the pacing and the effectiveness of the first story.


THE CONJURING 2

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

2016 saw the return of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as the Warrens in The Conjuring 2. James Wan returned to the director’s chair, and also co-wrote the script, along with Chad Hayes, Carey Hayes and David Leslie Johnson. This film briefly touches on the Warrens’ investigation into the Amityville haunting, before traveling to England to investigate the Enfield Poltergeist. They are sent there by the Catholic Church to determine if the stories being told by a working class family concerning a haunting in their home are true, or if they are instead an elaborate hoax.

In reality, Ed and Lorraine did determine this particular incident to be a hoax, but in the film, the family is ensnared by the power of a demonic spirit that not only manipulates the ghost of the former owner of the home, but also appears as a monstrous nun. This new adversary, while defeated in The Conjuring 2, would be the next focal point of the cinematic universe, as it was a successful villain that terrified audiences.

The film was massively successful and also introduced the world to the joys that can be found in watching Patrick Wilson sing and play guitar.


Annabelle Creation (2017)

The following year, a prequel was made to the less than stellar Annabelle film. Annabelle Creation takes place in 1955 as a middle-aged couple, Esther (Mirando Otto) and Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) open their home to a nun (Stephanie Sigman) and a group of girls after their orphanage closes down. Janice (Talitha Bateman), a girl who has been disabled by the effects of polio, finds a doll that had belonged to the couple’s deceased daughter, Annabelle. When Janice begins behaving strangely, Esther confesses that the couple had been so distraught when their daughter died that they agreed to allow what they thought to be her spirit to inhabit the doll. As it turns out, the spirit in question was a demonic entity playing on their grief. 

Gary Dauberman returned to write the script, and David F. Sandberg came aboard to direct. The film was a critical and box office success and was a huge step forward from the previous Annabelle entry. It told a new story while still tying itself back to everything that had already been established in the mythology. 


The Nun (2018)

In 2018, the terrifying demon nun, Valak, got her moment in the spotlight. The Nun was written by Gary Dauberman and directed by Corin Hardy. It is set in 1953 and tells the story of Irene (Taissa Farmiga), a novice nun and Father Burke (Demien Bichir) who are called to a Romanian monastery to investigate the mysterious circumstances following the suicide of a nun on the property. Upon their arrival, they learn that a demonic entity that has been imprisoned within the walls of the abbey has been released. The nuns pray in shifts to attempt to keep the evil at bay, but are quickly losing ground. This evil, known as Valak, takes the form of a nun and must be once again sealed in her prison before it can escape the grounds and bring corruption wherever it goes. 

The Nun was met with mixed reviews. Though it had a classic horror setting and atmosphere, the editing was shaky and the film didn’t flow like its predecessors. 


The Curse of La Llorona (2019)

Based on a Latin American folktale, The Curse of La Llorona follows Anna (Linda Cardellini), a social worker sent to investigate the disappearance of two young boys. When she arrives at their house, she finds the children locked in a room. She calls the police, and has their mother, Patricia (Patricia Alvarez), arrested. Patricia claimed to be locking the boys away for their own protection. The boys later turn up dead, and Anna’s own children begin experiencing strange happenings around their home. It seems Anna’s involvement in the case has brought her under the curse of the dreaded spirit La Llorona. Realizing that the spirit is powerful, she turns to the Church for help in banishing the entity.

The Curse of La Llorona’s place in The Conjuring Universe is not as obvious as the other films, and was only really known when the film was released. The La Llorona spirit was never a part of any of the prior films and the movie wasn’t marketed as a Conjuring film or as having any relation to the franchise. The connection itself is small, and lies in the appearance of Father Perez (Tony Amendola), the priest who counseled the couple in Annabelle.

The film received poor reviews, many of which cited the overuse of jump scares and the lack of a well-formed storyline.


Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

The second series entry for 2019 was the third film to focus on the Annabelle doll. Annabelle Comes Home sees Gary Dauberman returning once again, but this time, taking over the director’s chair and directing from his own script. The film brings the Annabelle story back to the Warrens. It takes place after they have acquired the doll and locked her away in their artifacts room. Ed and Lorraine take an overnight trip for an investigation and ask Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) to babysit their daughter, Judy (McKenna Grace). Mary Ellen’s friend, Daniela (Katie Sarife) tags along and beings to explore the items in the artifacts room. Of course, she lets a bunch of supernatural creatures loose and the girls have to contain the disaster before Ed and Lorraine return home. 

The film is a bit of a departure in tone from the rest of the series. It certainly has some scary moments, but it is all done with a sense of fun. This film is a scary sleepover that invites the audience along for the festivities. While Annabelle is definitely our main antagonist, she’s not the only thing the character have to contend with. A werewolf, a spectral ferryman and an evil bride all make appearances, adding to the supernatural chaos of the story and potentially offering up new villains for future installments.


The decade might be winding down, but The Conjuring Universe certainly isn’t. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are set to return to the series in 2020 with The Conjuring 3, a sequel to The Nun has been announced, and a film focusing on The Crooked Man from The Conjuring 2 is also in the works. As long as audiences continue to have an interest in supernatural horror, these films will continue to lead the pack and the universe will continue to expand to include more stories, more supernatural villains, and more scares.

Editorials

‘The Company of Wolves’ at 40: One of the Most Underrated Werewolf Movies Ever Made

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There’s a compelling idea in anthropology that many ancient werewolf legends are derived from our species’ need to rationalize the more animalistic side of humanity – which is why lycanthropy has historically been used to explain everything from medieval serial killers to cannibalism. While I personally think there’s a lot more to unpack when it comes to tales of wolfmen and women, this is still a great example of why so many of our most enduring fairy tales involve big bad wolves.

And in the world of film, I think there’s only one feature that really nails the folkloric origins of werewolf stories, namely Neil Jordan’s 1984 fairy-tale horror classic, The Company of Wolves. Even four decades later, there’s no other genre flick that comes close to capturing the dreamlike ambience behind this strange anthology, and that’s why I’d like to take this opportunity to look back on one of the most underrated werewolf flicks ever made.

The Company of Wolves was originally a short story contained in the 1979 anthology The Bloody Chamber, a collection of deconstructed fairy-tales intended for mature readers penned by English author Angela Carter. With the book quickly becoming a hit as readers became fascinated with its subversion of classic folk stories and (then) controversial feminist undertones, it was soon transformed into a duology of BBC radio-dramas which adapted both The Company of Wolves and Carter’s reimagining of Puss-in-Boots.

These radio-dramas soon attracted the attention of then up-and-coming Irish filmmaker Neil Jordan, who decided to meet with Carter to discuss expanding on her stories and bringing them to life on the big screen. The duo soon realized that a single short story wasn’t enough material for a feature-length film, so they decided to adapt all of Carter’s werewolf tales into a single anthology.

With a completed script and a $2.3 million budget, Jordan decided to tackle the project like a hybrid between a theatrical period drama and a schlocky monster movie. Effects-heavy creature features were a hot commodity back in the ’80s, with films like The Howling and An American Werewolf in London proving that there was an audience for horrific lycanthrope transformations, so the director soon recruited a team that could turn this odd collection of feminist folk stories into something commercially viable.

Not exactly a great pick for family movie night.

Shooting would eventually take place almost entirely within the England-based Shepperton Studios, with notable production designer Anton Furst (who would later be known for his work on Tim Burton’s Batman films) helping to bring Jordan’s vision of a darkly romantic fairy-tale world to life. Appropriately enough, production would also involve a real pack of trained wolves (as well as a collection of dyed dogs), though extensive puppetry and animatronics were also used to flesh out the more gruesome parts of the flick.

After a grueling nine-week shoot where budgetary constraints led to corners being cut on props and costumes, The Company of Wolves was finally released in September of 1984 – just in time for spooky season. In the finished film, we follow the strange dreams of a sulky teenage girl named Rosaleen (first-time actress Sarah Patterson) as the film unravels an Arabian-Nights-inspired tapestry of both familiar and not-so-familiar stories about big bad wolves.

From sexually charged cautionary tales to parables about female empowerment, this surreal collection of deranged bedtime stories is much more than the creature feature that the marketing initially suggested. Like a more horror-oriented version of Jim Henson’s Labyrinth, The Company of Wolves exudes that same kind of hormonal teenage energy that transports us back to a time when the world was both scary and exciting in equal measure.

That’s not to say that this is an entirely pleasant experience, however, and I’m not just talking about the film’s horror elements. A big portion of the flick’s overtly sexual moments involve the then 13-year-old Patterson coming to grips with her blossoming womanhood and the dangers of predatory men (usually marked with a humorous unibrow), something that naturally makes for some intentionally uncomfortable viewing – especially in the year of our lord 2024.

Obviously, I don’t think it’s my place to dissect (or even judge) the effectiveness of the film’s commentaries on being a young woman, but even as a man I can still appreciate the thought and care that went into crafting this Jungian cocktail of serious themes in a genre-movie package that almost certainly went on to inspire future werewolf movies like Ginger Snaps.

Not the worst wedding I’ve been to.

That being said, what really keeps me coming back to the film is the absurd amount of memorable imagery. From a wedding party being taken over by canines to lonely treks through snowy groves, this is exactly the gloomy world I imagined as a child when reading Grimms’ Fairy Tales – and the dreamy atmosphere is only enhanced by the movie’s overall theatricality.

This also extends to the effects, as it’s easy to forgive decapitated dummy heads and ripped rubber skin when everything is happening in a magical hyper-reality, with a great example of this is being the scene where Grandma’s head unexpectedly explodes like a porcelain doll when it’s knocked off by a wolfman. That’s not to say that the effects are bad, as several of these transformations are downright grisly and likely influenced future lycanthrope effects like those in Underworld and even Trick ‘r Treat (even if the wolf-dogs here often look more cute than scary).

Of course, these aren’t the only things that The Company of Wolves has going for it, as the main trio of Patterson, Micha Bergese and the late, great Angela Lansbury exceptionally bring these exaggerated caricatures to life and the orchestral score is an absolute delight. I also really get a kick out of that bizarre ending implying that the dangers of adult life have literally come crashing into Rosaleen’s bedroom.

The Company of Wolves may not be a perfect film, suffering from some wonky pacing and the classic anthology problem where some stories are clearly much more enjoyable than others, but I’d argue that the flick’s iconic visuals and powerful thematic throughline more than make up for any minor flaws. And while we’ve seen bigger and better werewolf films since then, when it comes to adult-oriented fairy-tales, this is one psycho-sexual journey that is still worth revisiting 40 years down the line.

The Company of Wolves

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