The Conjuring (2013) 1h 52m

I find the Warren's to be fascinating people, and I mean this in the most neutral and scientific sense.  While they were a power couple of paranormal and demonology, there always remains a thread of skepticism with their cases that someone is trying to pull.  Others in their field have denounced them or claimed they were exaggerating cases.  Prior to this, most people know them from the Amityville Horror case or seeing Lorraine on Paranormal State, and in a way maybe the pop culture association has done more harm than good.  With that said, I was excited when this film was going to come out because I was hoping it was going to pull back some of the veil on their work.  Instead it spawned a spin-off and sequel which I feel is more damning than Baal on holiday.

We start The Conjuring by getting a brief telling of Annabelle, a spirit that inhabits a creepy porcelain doll (in real life it's just a Raggedy Ann doll).  This is more to give us a lead-in to the Warrens as they're approached after speaking at a college and asked to come to a possibly haunted house.  The rest of the film is a mix of the family living in the home, the team investigating, and some personal life of the Warrens.

This film should really just be called "Jump Scares: The Movie."  Existing as much more of a paranormal drama, it's mostly figures popping out and loud noises ensconced in a supermarket paperback.  The only scare I liked was the sheet being blown off the clothesline and taking the form of a person before flying up to a window and then away.  I don't think it's coming back either.  We'll miss you sheet, we barely knew you.

I do want to rant about one thing here:  At the beginning we're given some text about the Annabelle doll and how the story was locked away until now.  Okay, first, that fucking doll is the most well known thing in their collection.  You can go to any paranormal website and there's probably a page on it.  They claim it caused a motorcycle accident with someone that made fun of it.  Before this film, if you Googled the Warrens you would see that fucking doll!  They do fucking tours of their haunted object museum!!!  Kiss my ass "locked away until now."

Okay, rant over, but so is my love for this film.  It wasn't what I hoped for when it first came out.  There are too many artistic liberties taken via Hollywood and at the same time I found myself bored.  If you're trying to make something scarier and instead I'm looking up haunted objects on Ebay then you failed!  I would be interested in a movie on this supposed Djinn trapped in a ring that will make you a sexual beast!  That can be The Conjuring 3: The Ring!  Only $49.99, with free shipping!

I give The Conjuring 1 picture of the real Annabelle out of 5:

Day 27: The Chosen (2015): 1h 28m

There are a lot of really weird and cool things that come out of Abrahamic religions.  One of the most common you come across is Lilith, the first wife of Adam.  She was made of the same clay as Adam and was a much more independent individual.  The story goes that Lilith turned down Adam's sexual advances.  Adam, jilted and angry, turned to God and complained that Lilith would not do what he wanted.  God cast Lilith out of the garden and cursed her barren.  God then took the rib from Adam and created Eve.  The rib was used this time because it was a part of Adam and thus Adam would have a better control of Eve.  From here Lilith's story gets random.  To some, she becomes a vampire and feeds on or kills infants.  She also becomes Fraser's wife.  In this film she makes a pact with Lucifer and possesses children.  If a blood relative doesn't draw a blood sigil on six other blood relatives for Eve to take in the child's place.

And that's the plot of 2015's The Chosen.  An early 20's something uncle spends his time trying to save his niece from Lilith.  Luckily he has two elderly people living in the house, a bitch of an aunt that shows up, his mom (who confesses that she killed the young girl's twin brother three years ago), and a drunken asshole of an uncle living in the house.  That's only five you say.  C'mon, you know who the 6th person ends up being...

This film was slow as hell.  Even when there was action it felt like it was slow.  A ghost nun that wrote the weird book on Lilith our main guy ends up with shows up a few times and is kind of cool.  Otherwise, this movie was a good plot but a boring execution.  The Chosen was only rated PG, and that was its nail in the coffin.  If it were a solid R they could've made this pretty awesome.  I mean, the fact I spit out a bunch of esoteric knowledge on Lilith and that's longer than my review portion of this film should mean a lot.

I give The Chosen 1 Lilith statue out of 5: