FILM ANALYSIS - THE CONJURING 2

Film

The Conjuring 2

The films opening scene starts with a wide angle shot of the old abandoned house supported by the narration of the main protagonist of the story.

The camera keeps on moving towards the inside of the house, so whilst the protagonist narrates us about the situation,the audience also gets to look around different shots of the house to grasp in the haunting environment of it. Throughout we can hear non digetic sounds of typical horror themed violin music playing in the background,which is very common in horror movies.

Shortly afterwards theres on old newspaper styled font text that reads Amityville,New York : 1976. The reason they chose this font is to give more of the old cultured 70's experience when digital fonts werent a thing. This gives us a suspension of disbelief since we know it is happening in another time period.

The next scene shows a camera guy walking down the stairs in a room full of 8 people gathered around in a circle around a table with candles lighted whilst the narrator tells us that the house is haunted and the church had called her for help.

With just this much information, the audience now knows what the narrators role in the story is.

There are a couple of fast cut scenes to make sure the camera work isnt dragged by too lengthy close ups and one take shots.

As the camera zooms in on the face of the protagonist, non digetic sound turns to digetic since the protagonist sitting in the scene speaks and tells others to gather around and close their eyes.

The lightning in that room is dim and dull to give a greyed out effect of mid 70's and everyones dressed in an old fashioned way. Most of the areas in the house are dark since there are a lot of dark rooms in horror movies.

She closes her eyes and the narration follows again explaining how a man had murdered his entire family in that very house and they hoped to discover if the killings had anything to do with something supernatural.

As the camera keeps focusing in on her face, it stops right when the camera is close enough to get a clear shot of her eyes as she opens it when she hears a gunshot and the camera starts to zoom out its way back.The room is now much more darker and all the other people present in that room are gone,which shows that the protagonist is now using her mind powers and all of this is going inside her head.

The next scene starts with a tilt shot gradually moving forward as the lady walks from an over the shoulder angle.Tilt shots are very common in horror movies, so is the shot that comes right after the tilt. This is a specific kind of shot taken from the darker area of the room which is used in horror movies to give an impression that someone is out there in the dark and watching the protagonist from there.

The expression on her face and her slow paced walk shows us that she is just as terriffied as she is curious to find out the truth.

In the next scene, as she climbs up the stairs with the camera set of top of them,she is hearing whispering voice that are telling her to stay away. We can see old and rotten frames hanging on the wall of two young brothers, which explains us two things, that this house has been abandoned for a long time and those brother pictured were the ones killed by their father.

She climbs up the stairs to a room that opens its door itself, another effect that is very common in horror movies. The sound effects of the door cracking are very prominent to give an extra thriller with the movie.

As the door opens we see a grown lady in her pale white night suit which looks very old fashioned, in a room with an old 70's TV set and a bed as the voices start whispering again,this time telling her to "Kill her".

Suddenly, theres a quick cut scene when the lady turns her face to give a horror effect to of an unexpected scare and she shouts towards the protagonist. She then instantly falls down on the bed,shot in the head by the air gun that the protagonist pretends to have in her hands.

The next scene shows the protagonist standing in front of the mirror, where her reflection is not of herself, but of the murderer who has the actual shotgun in his arms and moves exactly like a reflection of the protagonist.

She then walks in the other room and shoots both the kids too.

The next scene takes us back to the real world where she is still sitting with those people in the room downstairs with her eyes closed and suddenly realises what she experienced and how tormenting it was so she starts to freak out, however shes still in her mind having the same visions and when her husband seems to ask her what she sees,that turns into a whispering echoing sound in her own mind which gives us a different sound experience that shows us that she is still in contact with the real world.

Frightened and terrified, she sits down on the stair where theres a close up of the face to show the frightened expressions of hers.