Tag Archives: James Wan

10 Trivia Facts About The Conjuring 2 (2016) – We Bet You Don’t Know Them All!

20 September 2016

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James Wan’s The Conjuring 2 did well in theaters and with critics, and it’s finally available for rental!  There are no major spoilers here, just some fun trivia that we would be surprised if you had heard all about before now.

  1.  Javier Botet played “The Crooked Man”. Search “Javier Botet” in the content for this site and you’ll come up with a hell of a lot a pieces he’s tagged in. Mr. Botet has portrayed many of the most frightening, nightmarish characters in the last ten years of cinema, including “the Medeiros Girl” in the fucking terrifying climax of [REC] (2007) and two other movies in the same franchise, the titular character of Mama (2013), who can kill you just by showing up, and the horrifying ghostly female apparitions featured in the only scary scenes in Crimson Peak (2015), among others. He is 6 ft 7 and weighs about 110 lbs, and he is also double-jointed.  If you didn’t know Mr. Botet’s work well, you would think that the Crooked Man apparition in The Conjuring 2 was created by using CGI animation …but you would be wrong.
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Guess who?

2/3. See that featured image up at the top of this piece? Notice the letters on the bookshelves? V-A-L-A-K. Also, check out the colorful letters on the window below…

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4. Lily Taylor blew her voice out from screaming during filming of the first Conjuring. Vera Farmiga did her one better and blew out a damned lymph node from screaming (multiple takes were needed, which made it worse) filming her role as Elizabeth Warren during The Conjuring 2. Jesus! Ouch! [source: IMDB]

 

5. Did you know that to promote the DVD/Blu-ray release, the studio put out a trailer that consists of the original trailer backwards, and it is somehow even creepier that way? You can watch it right here (EW.com made it an exclusive, so no insert)… and (hint) listen.

 

6. Speaking of very scary voices, the actual recording of the possessed Janet Hodgson is played over the end credits. The dialogue in the movie follows the recording closely. If you are feeling brave and the lights are on, you can listen to it below (this recording goes for a full twelve minutes, unlike the condensed version played in The Conjuring 2). Regardless of your level of skepticism, does THIS sound like an 11-year old girl to you? The working class Hodgson family did not exactly have access to sophisticated voice-altering technology. Today it could be easily be faked …but not back in 1977. Listeners beware, however; this made the hair on our bodies stand on end.

 

7. You probably spotted Annabelle (you don’t forget that thing’s face) in her glass cabinet, along with the music box from The Conjuring in the Warren’s museum,  but did you see the black and white painting hanging in the Warren’s office?

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It’s the house from The Conjuring, along with that very distinctive tree. Minus Bathsheba’s shadow hanging from the tree, it looks very close to the image on the theatrical poster.

8.  Here’s an extremely creepy one. During the Amityville séance cold-open, Elizabeth Warren is terrorized by (among other things) a demonic-looking little boy whose eyes glow a white-silver. Director James Wan was inspired by the following notorious photo claiming to show the youngest victim of the DeFeo massacre (copyright: Paranormal Guide), AKA the “Amityville Ghost Boy”.

 

9. There is yet another image where you can pick out the demon Valak’s name. This one, you need to be looking for (thank you, IMDB trivia section, for telling us the time mark in the movie). You can see the “V” in the “love” plaque, and the rest…

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How did THAT get there?

10. Finally, we are pretty sure this is just PR from the movie studio to promote the home video release of The Conjuring 2, though warning potential viewers of possible unexplained, dangerous paranormal activity directly caused by watching a copy might not be the best media strategy. Here are alleged scary incidents pointing to some kind of “visual curse” that is the result of watching…

 

Oh, GIMME A FREAKIN’ BREAK! Stupidest thing we ever heard, pffffft! We rented the movie on VOD and watched it Saturday night, and we’re fine! Calling bullshit on this one, because… because… what was that noise?

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Horror Boom Creepy Holiday Countdown: The 11 Most Unintentionally Creepy Christmas Ornaments!

17 December 2013

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“So, how can we give our little Santa figurine that extra little bit of flair?” “How about we stick a light inside his head? Like he’s … glowing with Christmas cheer or some shit? Just do it, I’m sure it’ll look fine.”
You were probably too distracted by Santa’s glowing demonic eyes there to notice what he’s sitting on: a tiny little house. And if you don’t think a gigantic Santa whose eye sockets are burning with the fiery embers of hell itself squatting on your roof is terrifying, it’s only because you haven’t seen the video of it in action yet.

-from the “11 Most Unintentionally Creepy Christmas Ornaments” article at Cracked.com

(hit the photo below to cut to the chase, or keep reading for a link at the bottom)

Nope, no serious nightmare material here!

Nope, no serious nightmare material here!

Here we go with another Creepy Holiday Countdown link. What is it, now, 8 days away? AAAAAAAAAIGH! That’s scary enough on its own. Where did that rum eggnog go?

Anyway, don’t miss this one–it’s well worth checking out! The “Snowman” with “Stocking” looks like a prop from a James Wan-directed ghost movie, the “Godzilla Santa” sounds cool until you see the photo–at which point you’ll hope no small children looked up at it and were terrified for life–and “So Apparently Terrified Infant Ornaments Are a Thing”…well, when you see it, you’ll wonder who is the hell thought it would NOT be creepy on a tree. We almost hope that one was intentionally creepy. The writing is hilarious, too-check out both pages! Click below–or on the photo of the ornament, also below, that unintentionally looks like a certain painting to read…

The 11 Most Unintentionally Creepy Christmas Ornaments (At Cracked.com).

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Blu-ray Review: The Conjuring

18 November 2013

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(NOTE: You Tube clip and images not exactly showing up loud and clear? When you click on the link to read more, you’ll see them just fine on Rhino’s Horror)

Check out this excellent review of The Conjuring (including the features on the Blu-ray) …which Horror Boom agrees with 100%.  I actually lost track of the number of times I screamed aloud in panic. A handful of grown men in the theater got pretty vocal too, including one guy to the left opposite row from where we sat, who actually did a spit take when he made the mistake of sipping his beverage right before the wardrobe jump scene. At one point–I distinctly recall it was during the scene that took place in total fucking daylight where the Warrens played back their recording of the interview with Andrea and heard …well, what they heard instead of her voice… I began unintentionally squeezing the other half of Horror Boom’s (my husband) hand so tight he winced and decided to just put his hand on my arm instead. See, this is why I kept running into a brick wall a couple of sentences in when I sat down to write a review of The Conjuring after seeing it in a packed theater–the scares and mood were so visceral I still can’t write a traditionally-structured review*. At this point, anyway, I’ve resigned myself to having to say the hell with it and just ended up having to relate my various reactions to the movie instead.

As for the Blu-ray features, Ryan’s got them covered. The Conjuring Blu-ray is going on our Christmas list just for the “Scaring the @#$% Out of You” featurette alone. Be sure to give this a read! Not to mention, no spoilers. If you haven’t seen it yet but have been meaning to …what are you waiting for?

*I’ve had the same thing happen with several other horror movies– the French horror film Inside comes to mind as an example. Don’t get me started…

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Seeing as how I never got the chance to review James Wan’s The Conjuring when it scared up theaters back in July, I figured a Blu-ray review only made sense. Hitting shelves on October 22nd, acclaimed director James Wan’s The Conjuring follows a pair of paranormal investigators who help a family haunted by a demonic force, only to find themselves trapped in their own horrifying nightmare. The film stars Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as Ed and Lorraine Warren; Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor as Roger and Carolyn Perron.

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Film Review: ‘Insidious: Chapter 2’

13 September 2013

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OK, we’re definitely on board! Variety loved it. Bottom line on our hopes for this movie: A. To find out what happens to the Lambert family next and B. a haunted-house thrill ride. Also, we could use a good James Wan-induced scream!

Check out the new Insidious Chapter 2 featurettes – just go  to the official site to see them all,  including some creepy ‘interactive’ features. You may not want to check them out alone in the dark with the sound blasting, though…

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When would YOU get the hell out of the house in The Conjuring?

2 August 2013

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A very valid question! Yeah, I think the birds would do it for me (if not before then). Take the quiz (but beware of MAJOR spoilers if you haven’t seen the movie yet – and if you haven’t, we highly recommend you do)! By the way, take some time to check out Renae Rude’s amazing blog, The Paranormalist — recommended, and often creepy, reading!

Renae Rude - The Paranormalist

Nearly every haunted house movie begins the same way – a middle-class family invests every penny they have in an old fixer-upper.  There is a married couple, a child (or children,) a cat and/or a dog. There is often (though not always) something a little dysfunctional or unusual about the family. Communication is these families is usually spotty at best. The husband and wife don’t confide in each other. The parents ignore unusual behavior by the kids or the animals, and don’t give credence to anything odd the kids say. The family is full of hope. It’s a brand-new, high-stakes, fresh-start for everyone.

Then bad things start to happen.

Ogre and I just got back from seeing The Conjuring. It’s a great movie in many ways, destined to become a horror classic.

But …

I could not help but ask myself the same question I always do when I see another…

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Why We Like Exorcist Movies: They Don’t Just Showcase the Devil, They Conjure up God Too

28 July 2013

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“Now, of course, evangelical Christianity has become one of the cornerstones of contemporary American life. And here we are, four decades after The Exorcist, still paying to get the bejesus scared out of us by watching a movie set in 1971 about a good woman “possessed” by her secret demon self. The Devil is here because, of course, he never left, and never will. In so many ways, he is old news. But the ritual of a horror film that reassures us by calling forth God to defeat him: That’s a conjuring we never get tired of.”  –Owen Gleiberman

We don’t agree with every point, but this is a thoughtful piece,  with an intriguing perspective, by longtime Entertainment Weekly film critic (and ardent movie lover) Owen Gleiberman that deserves a read… especially if you’re interested in exploring the role of God in exorcism-themed horror films.

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Current Owners Of ‘The Conjuring’ House Haven’t Slept In Days

27 July 2013

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A different kind of nightmare caused by The Conjuring. Not cool, whoever is doing this. If it were our house, we’d probably dress up as Bathsheba, get on an upper floor, and then wait until they got juuuuust close enough and then leap out at them, setting off some ear-splitting blaring siren off at the same time. OK, actually, that’d probably be counter-productive (but it would be fun if you had gotten really fed up). Let’s hope anyone curious is respectful and just pays a visit from a respectful distance.

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With all of the success and hype surrounding James Wan’s The Conjuring, you knew something like this was going to happen eventually. In a recent article on Woonsocket Call, it has been revealed that the current residents of the Harrisville, R.I. home are being disturbed by fans of the movie who want to take a peak at the house that inspired the film.

“We haven’t slept in days,” Norma Sutcliffe told The Call. “Because we wake up at 2 in the morning there are people with flashlights in our yard. People call on the phone and ask “is this ‘The Conjuring’ house?”  I can imagine that being pretty damn annoying. Obviously there’s really no harm in being curious and wanting to see the house that inspired it all. Hell, I myself went and checked out the Amityville Horror house a few years ago that I admired from a distance…

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The Conjuring – Ten Ways To Kill Time Until Your Showing!

19 July 2013

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(Insert some kind of “just hanging around to wait for the movie” joke of your own here; it’s probably funnier than any my sleep-deprived brain can think up).

Just a note here, it may not be the best idea to watch these after you get home from seeing the movie and you’re feeling tense and your nerves are jangled. I was feeling mellow when I made the mistake of watching…

1. ‘Vice’ and ‘The Conjuring‘ Present The 3:07 Project. Here’s the description: The devil’s hour, which takes place at 3:07 AM, is the most haunted time of the day. VICE and The Conjuring selected four directors to create short horror films inspired by that idea. Each one is distinctly twisted and scary.  

Strap in for the final two– especially the final short “The Last Dive,” directed by Jason Eisener. I deeply regret watching that after dark. Jesus! My heart lurched in my chest, I felt it distinctly.

2.  Read up some cool trivia, provided by yours truly, Horror Boom. The piece also has links to others, including the Warren’s Official Site and Museum of the Occult).

3. Check out Dread Central’s piece (and ‘black carpet interviews’ with cast and crew) on the star-studded premiere. We’re jealous (again).

4.  Not enough interviews with cast and crew, you say? Check THIS out from JoBlo.com- it’s exclusive, with Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson…

5. Another with Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston (ScreenSlam)

6. THIS is a great one from Screenslam – Lorraine Warren and James Wan! (Part One)

Here’s Part Two. I keep hearing nothing but good things about Lorraine Warren:

7. Here is an extremely informative piece on the true story behind The Conjuring.

8. We have some video of On-set and BTS footage. You want honesty, I didn’t watch them because I strongly suspect they could by spoiler-ish. You can check them out now or wait till after the movie–as we will–to watch. Oh, and it’s HD. WARNING, POSSIBLE SPOILERS!

aaaaand part 2.(also HD). Looks like there may be some B-roll footage, so consider this a SPOILER ALERT!

9. You can try to figure out what the fu what the hell the story is behind this B-roll shot (that ends up in the movie):

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10. Poke around The Warren’s official site. It includes the Warrens Occult Museum (link here is for the FB page), with a TON of footage, reading, and discoveries (not all of them pleasant ones) to dive into!

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Plus, there’s a ton of pieces here on Horror Boom you may have missed. Just type “conjuring” into the Search Box at the upper right hand corner and it’ll give you everything.

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Couple reminders:

  • Don’t forget to bring your screaming voice, maybe some lozenges to soothe your throat with after the credits roll.
  • Either empty your bladder before the movie or wear Depends
  • If you have any spare Xanax lying around, you may want to bring one in the theater with you. Probably already in your tummy!
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Film Review – The Conjuring (2013)

19 July 2013

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Great review – we probably WILL be coming home and watching something like The Fashion Police to get our minds off it Friday night!

 

Jordan and Eddie (The Movie Guys)

Conjuring top

By Jordan

Directed by James Wan

Starring Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ron Livingston

When Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga) agree to help a distraught family claiming their house to be infested with malevolent spirits, they are unaware that the case they are about to undertake will be the most challenging and distressing of their eventful, tumultuous careers as paranormal researchers. Similarly, when I as an audience member originally intending to see low-brow comedy This is the End changed my mind at the last minute and bought a ticket for The Conjuring, I had no idea just how much my heart was going to be very unimpressed; as it was made to work overtime for nearly the entire 112 minutes…

Having helmed the decade-defining Saw (2003), creepy and atmospheric Dead Silence (2007) and the often terrifying thrill-ride Insidious (2010), director James Wan has established himself as Australia’s premier Master…

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Ten Trivia Facts About The Conjuring – We Bet You Don’t Know Them All!

19 July 2013

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Unless you’re as obsessed with The Conjuring as we are, we’re guessing there’s going to be at least a few of these that are news to you. Either way, these (and the links we give for more information) make for some interesting– and creepy– reading!

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1. Lorraine Warren herself has a very brief cameo in The Conjuring – in one of the classroom scenes. You’ll need to keep an eye out to catch her, though.

2. We’re not going to go into back story (here, anyway) but when we poked around online to try to find out more about the real case, we discovered that the main demon, the one that terrorized the Perron family the most (especially Lili Taylor‘s character) and wanted to cause them the most pain, was called “Bathsheba”.

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3. Remember the ‘Lipstick-Faced Demon’ from James Wan‘s Insidious (2011) who scared the shit out of everybody (especially Barbara Hershey when we first saw him peeking out behind Wilson’s character)?

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AAAAAAAAAAAIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

That actor’s name is Joseph Bishara, and he plays Bathsheba in The Conjuring. Uh-oh.

4.  You may have–OK, probably have– noticed via the film’s marketing campaign that there’s a doll in the movie so goddamned creepy that it makes the clown doll in Poltergeist look cuddly.  The doll is based on another actual case the Warrens investigated.

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Creepy-ass doll created for The Conjuring

5.  The aforementioned creepy-ass doll that Wan based this sub-plot on was a Raggedy Anne doll named ‘Annabelle the doll’.  James Wan decided rather than use a Raggedy Anne (Quote from Wan: I could not go to the company that makes Raggedy Anne and say, “Hey, can we portray your doll,  you know, the product that you make as this thing that is a conduit to demonic spirits?”) he’d carefully design, craft, and build the creepiest doll he could find. Mission fucking accomplished. (See: Dead Silence if you doubt how sleep-with-the-lights-on scary Wan can make dolls and puppets)  The Warren Occult Museum displays the original Annabelle doll (in a glass case— for the protection of visitors, not the doll), and you can read about the actual case here… especially if you’re feeling sleepy but need to stay awake.

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The real deal.

6. Only one actual prop from the actual Warren’s Occult Museum  (the museum was recreated by the production for scenes in the film), was used during filming. Ed Warren was an avid artist and painter,  and James Wan says he saw one in the museum that “fit perfectly into our movie version of their haunted museum, and that’s what we have in there”. (Latino-review.com)

7. The movie’s original title was “The Warren Files” – possibly because the studio was considering a franchise (we like The Conjuring better). This recent featurette uses the title. In fact, the featurette was included in this piece reporting the news that a sequel was already in the works, despite the fact the movie is several days away from opening at the time (not that we’re complaining, mind you, especially if James Wan directs again).

8. Andrea Perron (who was about 12 years old when shit got real in their new home)wrote a book about her family’s experience called House of Darkness, House of Light. You can see her reading an excerpt from in below. Also, she has her own You Tube channel.

9. During filming,  star Lili Taylor (who also underwent a number of make-up preparations to represent her worsening stages of possession) actually blew her voice out from screaming so loudly and repeatedly… more than once. We assume she (and the sound editors) had a lot of work to get done in ADR.  (source: Collider.com article here)

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10. Cast and crew reported, when asked in interviews, that they experienced strange events during filming, such as scratches appearing on Farmiga’s computer after signing on for the film (see below quote), people inexplicably waking up between 3 and 4 AM (“the devil’s hour’)  and the real-life Carolyn Perron falling and breaking her hip while her family was visiting the set. (collider.com, same piece)

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“We’d sent her the script back in December and she’s in New York. James [Wan] is in L.A. So she read it immediately. We got the call from her reps, who said she loved it and wanted to get on the phone with James, or Skype the next day. … She went to sleep. She came back in the morning to get on her computer to Skype him and there were three deep scratches on her computer screen. Completely inexplicable. Like, they weren’t there the night before when she read the screenplay on the computer, but they were there in the morning. And there was just no way to explain what it was but stuff like that has happened constantly.”   –Producer Peter Safran

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