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‘The Conjuring 2’ Director James Wan Can Scare Anyone [Video]

By Nick Younker
Published on: 08:43 PST, Jun 7, 2016

The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist is poised to hit theaters this Friday with some extreme momentum heading into the film. Not only is it following in the original film’s footsteps, but director James Wan has returned for the sophomore release in The Conjuring franchise.

Let it be known that over the past decade, James Wan has had a stranglehold over the industry genre and his films have been pulling in some major box office hauls. One of those films walked outside of the horror genre, Furious 7, and it has grossed over $1.5 billion worldwide.

But James Wan is a contemporary horror maestro that seems to be blazing a strong legacy in Hollywood, much like Alfred Hitchcock, Wes Craven, and John Carpenter did. His horror films have been major hits right out of the gate, starting with Saw in 2004 and most recently with The Conjuring and Insidious: Chapter 2.

As a matter of fact, James Wan’s The Conjuring made $318 million worldwide, which is a major achievement for an R-rated horror film, according to Box Office Mojo. With so much going for The Conjuring franchise, there is good reason to believe that The Enfield Poltergeist will mark an even higher achievement than its predecessor and draw huge crowds just because James Wan is attached to it.

From the director’s own mouth, James Wan takes a unique approach to horror filmmaking and does not focus on the scares, the gore, or the creatures, although they are incredibly frightening to say the least. But what is more intense for James Wan’s movies is the fact that he wants the audience to really care about the characters that he creates. There is a lore present in all of his films that establishes major risks for his characters and puts them most heavily in the spotlight, as opposed to the scares.

Just consider what he did with The Conjuring. That film started out with Ed and Lorraine Warren, who were both real-life people, giving a lecture at a college and showing video evidence of their investigation with the Annabelle doll. The video was scary, but the scene was intended to highlight the Warrens as rational people who try to help others with supernatural occurrences. But they are established early on as Joe and Jane Everyman, who have normal lives and a family. They have personal stakes that are put at risk, but to top that off, they love each other very much.

James Wan did a fantastic job of establishing their roles in the film very early on before they ever got a chance to meet the Perrons – a family that were also portrayed to have a strong bond with each other.

As a matter of fact, The Conjuring was more of a family story than it was a horror story. It spoke to the lengths that a family would go to protect each other. It had a truly human element to it before the supernatural events started to unfold.

That is also what James Wan fans can expect to see in The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist. It will open up on the infamous Amityville case and segue over to England in the town of Enfield. There will be a family there that are being terrorized like the Perrons were back in the States.

The Warrens are going to take up the case with them as well. James Wan will also give a major focus on the British family and what’s at stake for them, which is his way of introducing characters that an audience will care about. That is where the real terror will begin on The Conjuring 2.

For those who have been waiting patiently, The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist will be opening this Friday in theaters everywhere.

[Image via Warner Bros.]

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