I'm a huge fan of chilling, creepy, fear inducing horror.
It's trickier to manoeuvre than other genres and can very easily fall into the trap of rigid, trite jump scares.
What sets The Conjuring (main series) apart from the chaffe of mainstream horror films is a masterful demonstration of lighting, sound design, framing, story and character depth.
"Scary" is subjective. However, I believe the average joe confuses intentional scares with scary.
The moments that stay with me from excellent horror films are not the jumps, the boogeyman faces, the screams or the gore - but the feeling of dread that cuts right to your core.
The Conjuring series has always managed to maintain this value - and the third film is no different.
The reason I give it an 8, is because even with a different director at the helm, James Wan stayed on as a writer, making his presence known through the classic one-take, use of shadows and absence of sound we've come to know and love from this series.
The Conjuring 3 shows us that it can deviate from the haunted house story but maintain it's quality - and in my personal opinion - improve upon it's own formula.
It feels like the most cinematic film for sure, with tighter direction coupled with higher production value. But this isn't just a case of "more money, bigger film" - they've really honed in on the details and nuances and it was just such a delicious experience.
I'd say the decision story wise was a fresh take, yet it did lead to an overall ever-so-slightly slower feel at times, however this is more than made up for by what this film does right.
It's trickier to manoeuvre than other genres and can very easily fall into the trap of rigid, trite jump scares.
What sets The Conjuring (main series) apart from the chaffe of mainstream horror films is a masterful demonstration of lighting, sound design, framing, story and character depth.
"Scary" is subjective. However, I believe the average joe confuses intentional scares with scary.
The moments that stay with me from excellent horror films are not the jumps, the boogeyman faces, the screams or the gore - but the feeling of dread that cuts right to your core.
The Conjuring series has always managed to maintain this value - and the third film is no different.
The reason I give it an 8, is because even with a different director at the helm, James Wan stayed on as a writer, making his presence known through the classic one-take, use of shadows and absence of sound we've come to know and love from this series.
The Conjuring 3 shows us that it can deviate from the haunted house story but maintain it's quality - and in my personal opinion - improve upon it's own formula.
It feels like the most cinematic film for sure, with tighter direction coupled with higher production value. But this isn't just a case of "more money, bigger film" - they've really honed in on the details and nuances and it was just such a delicious experience.
I'd say the decision story wise was a fresh take, yet it did lead to an overall ever-so-slightly slower feel at times, however this is more than made up for by what this film does right.