Having always been a fan of the supernatural, when I heard that the next James Wan horror film would be set in the London town of Enfield focusing around the much publicized Enfield Project, I was a little excited. Having recently spent an evening locked in a spooky establishment with poltergeist activity prevalent throughout the evening, anything that is due to send chills up my spine is always welcome.
I was happy with the first installment of the franchise, albeit the scarier moments were with the Annabelle side plot, but then the spin off film of the demonic doll was nowhere near as entertaining. Knowing more of the Enfield Project mainly down to my own personal interest, I was keen to know how the film would approach the undetermined amount of hoaxing and subsequent admissions to pranks from the young children to satisfy the active minds of the reporting teams.
I was not let down. Reports of furniture moving were supported by police witnesses which is portrayed at the start, everything else was down to subjecture and the camera helps with this by always being just off centre to events. There are a few overly fabricated and special effects heavy sections that took me out of the moment, but then I was dragged back in moments later with some creepy off screen movements. It has a feel of The Exorcist, dealing with similar context, being of a similar era, but even down to the atmosphere created by the Friedkin film.
The film should have ended where the investigation ended, but that would not have been a Hollywood ending, we needed something bigger, louder and more flashy which was a real down point, but I am used to the fact that the horror genre is terrible at closing a film. This is something that we now just have to accept, a horror film with a good ending is a real rarity.
To top my experience off perfectly, a few days later I was on a work field trip. Meeting a couple of clients at our head office on a couple of days out of our Manchester Office. The location of our meetings was no other than Enfield itself, Green Street only a matter of minutes away from the boardroom. It felt completely fitting that I should don the running trainers and pay a visit to Mr Bill Wilkins and say "hello". I was amazed and the mundane looking building, no one seemed ot be knowledgeable of the goings-on of this house, it was just another house on another street. School children ran by without a care, I think I was looking for more of an ominous feel, but what I got was a sense of the mundane.
No comments:
Post a Comment