CONJURING UP A BAD SEQUEL
I am writing this after seeing an early screening of the third Conjuring film, The Devil Made Me Do it. There were two factors that had me worried before accepting my screening pass. The first one was that the writer/ director, James Wan, had not come back for the third film. There are only a handful of Hollywood filmmakers who should be allowed near the horror genre and he is one of them. He decided not be in command of this project and instead selected the director of La Llorona, a man who has never met a loud noise that he did not believe could be improved by raising the volume.
The second thing that worried me was the trailer. If you were to watch the trailers for the first two conjuring films and were able to shorten a few clips these two films could have appeared to be dramas about families in distress. While the only way that you could cut the trailer for the third film is as a horror film.
I know that you are not here for a movie review but screenwriting advice and I am going to give it to you. Now please allow to say before I do this that this third film in the series is going to make money. Nothing could stop that from happening and if this was a generic horror film I would say that there is nothing wrong with that. Actors got to eat and bad directors need to get rehired.
Now let us look at what is wrong with this film.
What?
What did you say?
You do not have that much time?
Calm down, I can sum it up with one word.
Reality.
This movie does not occupy the real world or what we call reality.
Scene after scene after scene could only exist in a horror film.
From the first minute of the film we are clearly in a horror movie and it never takes time away from the jump scares to establish reality. The art of the great horror film is to establish a world that we all recognize and feel comfortable in. To ground us in normal life and then to flip it on its head. To have something dark and unknown attack what is normal. The problem with most horror films is that those worlds and the people in them do not exist in our world. They react in ways that poorly written characters do. We can do better. We have to do better because the number one horror franchise is headed toward a sad end.
Okay, this is the lesson for today.
If there is going to be a demon, a ghost, a vampire or a killer doll, the audience will respect what you have done and reward you handsomely if you first ground your story in the real world. The Conjuring showed us a glimpse into the lives of a real family. The second film a real working class British family. They have real life problems before the supernatural elements arrive. My ultimate advice is to write your screenplay. Write a complete screenplay about the characters who occupy this world that you have built but leave out the horror elements in the first draft. If that first draft reads like a quality psychological thriller then during the second draft feel free to layer in the supernatural elements. Add the evil spirit, add the killer doll, add the vampire, the curse, the demon, the supernatural element.
Now let us look at the trailers for each film starting with the first one. The trailer is more effective the entire third film.
Now the second film. I believe that the movie is better than the trailer. The first thirty minutes of this film is the most effective that I have seen in a horror film since the Exorcist.
Now let’s look at the trailer for the third film. This is truly another universe that we are visiting.
Before I leave you I want to offer a video that explains how James Wan sets up a horror scene.
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