Case File 038: The Conjuring

For a lot of us, The Conjuring almost seemed to come out of nowhere in the summer of 2013. It stood out amidst the usual slew of sequels & remakes and its success not only cemented James Wan as a modern master or horror, it also helped breathe new life into the genre.

Of course, The Conjuring is now a major franchise itself with numerous sequels and spin-offs in its orbit. In some ways, those have diluted our impressions of the series as a whole. So we wanted to go back to the source and investigate what made this original film so impactful.

Topics include: the complicated and controversial back story of the real life Ed & Lorraine Warren, the latitude we give films that are sold as being “based on a true story”, the decision to create parallel storylines that eventually converge instead of focusing squarely on the Perron family’s POV, how Ed’s three step lecture about demons addresses a lot of the big problems with most haunted house movies, key differences between this film and its sequels, and much more!