Jakob's Wife (2021)

Jakob's Wife was a pet project of the iconic Barbara Crampton, who had apparently spent years trying to bring the script by Kathy Charles, Mark Steensland, and director Travis Stevens to life.

She is quoted on IMDB as saying:

"I read it and I was immediately captivated. I hooked up with Bob Portal at Alliance Media Partners and it took many years for us to develop the project and put it together."

In the film, Crampton plays Anne Fedder, the dutiful but downtrodden wife of a boorish, small town minister, Pastor Jakob Fedder (Larry Fessenden).

The film wastes no time in getting to the meat of its storyline when an attractive girl, Amelia Humphries (Nyisha Bell), disappears on her way home from an evening church service.

Then Anne has the chance to meet up with an old flame, Tom Low (Robert Rusler), who is back in town to help with the restoration of a historic gin mill.

The couple rendezvous at the rundown, out-of-town, property but just as it looks like their old romance is about to be rekindled, they are attacked by supernatural forces.

Tom is killed off swiftly, but Anne returns home later... a changed woman.

Bonnie Aarons as The Master

She has fallen under the spell of an enigmatic, asexual, vampire lord - of the old school, Nosferatu-style - known only as The Master (Bonnie Aarons, who also played the titular role in The Nun).

Once Jakob realises what's going on in his town, he is at first naturally horrified, but then his desire to exterminate the vampire threat (which he readily accepts as real) is tempered by a determination to save his wife, somehow.

The story pivots and lurches thematically and tonally, but it is Barbara Crampton's powerful central performance around which everything revolves and that holds this strange 98-minute affair together.

I think it's supposed to be a dark comedy, but this really isn't clear from the get-go.

There's a definite Fright Night vibe - and even a touch of Buffy The Vampire Slayer - to Jakob's Wife, but it has an odd habit of allowing characters to flip from 'good guys' to 'bad guys' at a moment's notice.

Jakob, for instance, isn't a particularly likeable person to begin with, and yet there are times when he's suddenly - slightly uncomfortably - thrust into the role of 'hero'.

In all honesty, the majority of the audience isn't ever going to care for him... even if, at the eleventh hour, he realises what a great catch his wife is.

And I wasn't totally sold by his transition from "thoughts and prayers solve everything" to "killing in the name of love".

Conversely, Anne switches from murderous monster to "hero" and back again several times in the tale.

Director Travis Stevens was certainly very lucky to have an actor as brilliant as Barbara Crampton as the power engine behind his movie, because it could have possibly spun totally out of control without her presence.

Jakob's Wife is a buffet, a potential melange of different tastes that may, or may not, appeal depending on your personal preferences and tolerances.

The Nun (2018)

In 1952, news of the apparent suicide of a nun at a cloistered abbey in darkest Romania reaches The Vatican.

They call upon one of their elite 'miracle hunters', Father Burke (Demian Bichir), to investigate, as the abbey has a 'chequered' reputation.

He is paired up with a young novitiate, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), that the Church feels may be of assistance to him because of her history of "visions".

Arriving in Romania, the holy duo meet Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet), the French-Canadian courier and guide who discovered the body of the dead nun, and recruit him to their cause.

Together this threesome probe the mysteries of the haunted abbey, and try to get to the bottom of the site's unholy - and demonic - secrets.

To all intents and purposes, the set-up and plot of The Nun is a grand Dungeons & Dragons adventure, with three mismatched adventurers plunging into a 'dark underworld' of tricks, traps, and monsters (complete with a demon-warding holy relic) to try and solve a puzzle.

As a rule, I'm not a big fan of either prequels or jump scares, but as the latest entry in The Conjuring Universe of movies, the film cleverly weaves itself into the backstory of The Conjuring 2, by providing a kind of 'supervillain origin story' for the titular demonic Nun (again portrayed by Bonnie Aarons) aka Valak.

As to jump scares, there are only really a couple and they're handled surprisingly well, delivering cathartic releases from moments of escalating terror.

Directorial tools such as foreshadowing and atmospheric lighting are quite on-the-nose, but help give The Nun a pulpy feel that mixes elements of modern movies with those of the classic Hammer era.

Once our heroes are entrenched within the confines of the abbey, the story quickly devolves into a surreal rollercoaster of mental torments and ghostly visitations.

It's not worth trying to attach too much logic to much of what unfolds, instead wallow in the psychological torment of the main characters as they battle the evil forces at work within the abbey.

However, for all the smoke and mirrors, the script is intriguing enough that its real power is to compel you to want to rewatch both it - to catch what you missed the first time - and The Conjuring 2 to see where the two stories intersect.

There's also the nice meta-connection that Sister Irene is portrayed by the younger sister of Vera Farmiga who plays Lorraine Warren in the main Conjuring flicks, and has a couple of brief cameos here in some 1970's scenes lifted from the previous movie.

Ultimately, it's not required viewing, and isn't that informative on Valak's backstory, but The Nun is an entertaining funhouse flick with quite an old school vibe to it.

Annabelle - Creation (2017)

It's the little things that can make a good movie.

During the first act of Annabelle: Creation, before the expected ghostly horrors begin, Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) is sharing a photograph of her fellow nuns and, at one point, she tilts it at a certain angle and, briefly, a face appears in the shadows of the picture, lenticular-like: it's Valak (from The Nun and The Conjuring 2).

It's never mentioned again, never referenced, but it's a marvellous Easter Egg tying this film - beyond the presence of its titular antagonist - to the wider Conjuring Universe.

Director David F Sandberg (who also directed Shazam!) makes great use of light and shadows in this creative origin story for the demonic doll, Annabelle, that far exceeds her disappointing first 'solo' film for scares and coherence.

Written by Gary Dauberman (who was also responsible for Annabelle, Annabelle Comes Home, The Nun, IT: Chapter Two, and developing Swamp Thing for DC Universe), Annabelle: Creation sees melancholic, former toy maker, Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his bed-bound wife, Esther (Miranda Otto), opening their isolated home to Sister Charlotte and half-a-dozen orphan girls.

Twelve years earlier, in the mid 1940s, their young daughter, Annabelle (Samara Lee) had been run over and killed, and despite the generous nature of Mr Mullins, there's a definite creepy cloud of gloom hanging over the house.

Exploring a room in the house she was forbidden to enter, one girl, Janice (Talitha Bateman) is attacked in the night by some kind of demonic entity. Already hobbled by polio, this attack leaves her in a wheelchair, and the other girls start to believe her stories of 'ghosts', especially when Janice's behaviour takes a turn for the worse.

Although the climax of the main plot is slightly jumbled, even feeling a bit rushed, overall Annabelle: Creation is tightly scripted and delivers on most counts.

For the most part it avoids cheap jump scares, and instead oozes unnerving, "it's behind you", tension and atmosphere.

Taking a lesson from the first Annabelle flick, director David Sandberg doesn't dwell too long on the static doll, instead drawing the story's terror from what goes on around her.

The all-important "creation" of the central demonic doll is surprisingly interesting and clever (although I don't understand why no one ever suggested pouring a can of petrol over the doll and setting it alight, especially once it became clear how evil it was).

Towards the end of the film there's a nice nod to the "real Annabelle doll" in a sequence that dovetails neatly into the first Annabelle movie.

Besides the fantastic Easter Eggs, a strength of many of The Conjuring Universe movies has been their period settings, and that's ever-prevalent in Annabelle: Creation, with its story eventually spanning spanning three decades.

And, I know I came to this franchise late, but I love the way it really is a "cinematic universe" - in the style of the Marvel movies - with its stories not focusing on a single demonic entity or ghostly group simply repeating the same narrative over and over through unending sequels of ever-decreasing quality and budget.

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

One of the things I appreciated about The Conjuring is that it relies almost as much on building atmosphere and tension as it does on cheap jump scares.

And The Conjuring 2 sticks to that formula very successfully.

Even with its two hour and 14 minute duration (about a half hour longer than the original) it surprisingly never outstays its welcome.

And is, perhaps, even better than the first movie as it's more willing to embrace its cinematic nature and have fun with what that offers.

By shoehorning the '70s demonologist Warrens into a "real life" hoax that, at best, they were only actually peripherally involved with, has allowed director James Wan and his co-writers Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes, and David Leslie Johnson, to go 'full Hollywood' on this one.

They even throw in some demonic entities of their own creation that proved to be suitable for spinning-off into their own movies (e.g. The Nun) as The Conjuring Universe expanded.

While simultaneously focusing on a family in Enfield, London, troubled by an entity that has possessed the youngest daughter, Janet (Madison Wolfe), The Conjuring 2 also follows would-be ghostbusters Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) as they come off the back of investigating the legendary Amityville haunting (which introduces the figure of The Nun, portrayed by Bonnie Aarons, into the movie's mythology).

A vision of Ed's impending death convinces Lorraine that they should give up this life of theirs, and they appear to be entertaining that thought until they're called in by the Catholic church to investigate the haunting in Enfield.

Dipping into the same catalogue of clichés as The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2 is essentially telling a very, very, very similar - if not identical story - with spirits targeting children, sleepwalking, creaking doors, inanimate objects moving and behaving strangely, thumping and banging sounds, mysterious injuries, spooky images in reflective surfaces etc

However, there's an extra layer to this sequel that adds a depth to the simplistic storytelling, spinning a visually-engaging demon-fighting story out of a piece of fiction that has been sold as fact to gullible souls.

Having that element of "based on a true story" (even if that so-called true story was make-believe) certainly adds a frisson of extra chills to The Conjuring films, but there's also no sense that the filmmakers feel bound by this here as it goes way-beyond the documented allegations, almost into Poltergeist territory.

Ultimately, if anything, like the original movie, this portrayal of the Warrens as 'soldiers of God' reminds me more of the Winchester family in Supernatural than anything else.

But that's not a bad thing. I'm still enjoying Supernatural after 13 seasons, I'm positive I could enjoy plenty more on-screen adventures for the Warrens.

If Superheroes Can Share Universes, Why Not Horror Films?

Conjuring Universe graphic by Jarvisrama99

The idea of a "shared horror universe" may have faltered with Universal's Dark Universe, but that approached the scenario from the wrong direction (establishing that there was a 'shared universe' then expecting audiences to automatically care).

The Conjuring franchise, on the other hand, popped out sequels, prequels, and spin-offs at a steady rate for several years - which people are obviously grokking - so confirming a "shared universe" was the next logical step.

I'll confess that for the longest time I'd never given them the time of day because I have problems with lauding real-life charlatans (Ed and Lorraine Warren) as 'heroes' in the fight against the (fictional) supernatural or giving credence to nonsense like the so-called Enfield Haunting.

It's one thing to enjoy the world of ghosts and ghoulies as the make-believe thrill-rides that good horror stories are, but when you start preying on the gullible and telling them this balloon juice is real then I have problems.

That's not to say I wouldn't relish really living in a world of "gods and monsters" (although I'd take "comic book superheroes" first if there's a choice), but I know they're just stories.

Mini-rant aside, this featurette promoting The Nun and - by extension - The Conjuring Universe, has actually piqued my interest in these movies, so I plan to revisit the ones I have on my shelf and give them a spin.

NB. The cinematic Warrens' arc (Phase One, to borrow MCU nomenclature?) supposedly wraps up in September's The Conjuring: Last Rites, but let's hope The Conjuring Universe continues with more monster-centric spin-offs and perhaps some new "heroes" coming to the fore.