The Conjuring 2

'The Conjuring 2' released within a couple of days, my friends and I went to the cinema to watch this movie. This is the very first time I watched a horror movie in the cinema. Usually, I will hide under my blanket and 'enjoy' the horror movie in my room because I knew that the sound system and visual effect in the cinema are going to enhance the horror elements in the movie greatly.

During watching the movie, I actually screamed in the cinema. But luckily my friend's screaming was louder than mine. Undeniably, this is a great movie and I enjoyed it a lot although it was very scary!

'The conjuring 2' is a supernatural horror film which directed by one of my favorite directors, James Wan.
The story is about a poor single family with four children, the Hodgson family suffering from a series of paranormal events in their haunted house. Ed and Lorraine Warren, husband and wife and also paranormal investigators approach to the family and try to solve the paranormal problems.

I like the mise-en-scene in this movie.
The setting of the film is in London with a time frame around 70's. I love the old street in London during the winter season. Through the movie, I saw a lot of vintage props, for examples the spin dial phone, black and white television and the remote control with the big buttons. From the setting, we can confirm the Hodgson Family is a poor family because their house is old and shabby. The furniture in the house is worn and there is a scene which the single mother Peggy, goes to the basement with her friend to do the laundry. Unfortunately, the washing machine has broken down. This makes me sad because they actually living in a very bad condition.
We can see a huge contrast between Warren couple's house condition if compared to Hodgson's.
Warren's house have complete and outstanding furniture plus the house is decorated with a lot of flora which able to make the house's environment become more friendly and warm.

Costume and make-up often able to enhance the appearance of the actors. To show the destitute of the Hodgson Family, the characters often wear the clothes with not much of design and all of them are in dull color. Unlike Warren couple, Ed is often wearing a hoodie with fashion design which is still popular in our decade while Lorraine often wearing Western women suit with elegant design. Make-up works very well on Janet, the second oldest child in Hodgson family. Janet always possessed by the old man spirit, Bill Wilkins. Wilkins is the previous owner of the house, he often possesses Janet's body to communicate with others. In the beginning, Janet is a beautiful and energetic young girl however she becomes weaker and exhausted after haunted by the ghost spirit. The make-up makes Janet's face pale and dark circles lies under her eyes to show Janet is extremely tired and depress.

Lighting plays an important role in a film. Low-key illumination usually applied in the horror films as it able to create stronger contrast and darker shadows. Low-key illumination makes the horror scenes become full of mystery and danger. For example, Billy, the youngest child in Hodgson family go downstair during the midnight to have a drink. The darkness in the house makes the audience feel nervous and curious whether Billy will get harm or return to his room safely. When Billy on his way returns to his room, he accidentally steps on his toy fire trucks. After that, he kicks the fire trucks into an Indian tent then return to his room and prepare for sleep. The tent suppose have nobody inside of it but the fire trucks actually moves by itself and enters into Billy's room. The darkness in the tent makes the audience unable to look into it and it creates mystery and horror element in that scene as we are curious what is in the tent.

In my opinion, a success film which able to make audiences enjoy and get into it, the enhancement of the films by sound effect cannot be ignored. To increase the horrific of the evil figures in 'The Conjuring 2' such as Crooked man, Bill Wilkins and Valak (the nun), their voice and screaming are creepy and stunning. Especially when Wilkins talks through Janet's body, the pitch of the voice is low and it makes the environment become more creepy and makes people shocking since Janet is just a little girl but with an old man voice. Valak, the nun does not have a dialog but her anger able to express via her roar especially the scene in Act three, Lorraine try to rescue Ed and Janet but Valak tries to stop her. I think that the scariest scene is Ed and Peggy go down to the basement and try to fix the washing machine. Ed found out that the washing machine has no problem but the pipe has blocked. Ed tries to fix the pipe which located in the middle of the flooded basement. At the moment Ed is fixing the pipe, Peggy sees some blurred spirit figure behind Ed. The background music enhances the nervous phenomena, and the jump scare works very well when the sound effect combine with the Wilkins who hides in the water and pulls Peggy into water. Sometimes, I'm confusing I was scared by the paranormal in the film or just the sound effects. I believed that a horror film is just a nothing if without the sound effect or background music.