The Conjuring is 260th episode of Screen Junkies comedy series Honest Trailers. It was written by Spencer Gilbert, Joe Starr and Dan Murrell. It was narrated by Jon Bailey as Epic Voice Guy. It parodies the 2013 supernatural horror film The Conjuring and its 2016 sequel. It was published on September 4, 2018, to coincide with the theatrical release of horror film The Nun. It is 6 minutes 25 seconds long. It has been viewed over 1.6 million times.
Watch Honest Trailers - The Conjuring on YouTube
"I think the real evil force at work here was the real estate company who kept selling the place." ~ Honest Trailers - The Conjuring
Script[]
From the director (James Wan) of that other horror franchise starring Patrick Wilson in a haunted house (Insidious), comes two films based on the 100% true ghost stories of Ed and Lorraine Warren, and it's a shame Warner Bros. settled that lawsuit against them (a Metro article with the title "Warner Bros are being sued £900 million — unless they can prove ghosts are real" pops up), 'cause they almost had to go to trial to prove that ghosts were real. (a The AV Club article with the title "Judge allows big Conjuring lawsuit that partially involves whether ghosts are real" pops up) (shows Ed's camera taking a picture of a door opening by itself) Aww, man; that sounds way more fun than Annabelle!
The Conjuring 1 and 2
Meet the Warrens, two of the least funny Ghostbusters; Lorraine is a combination of Doctor Strange and Jean Grey (shows Lorraine and Jean Grey being psychically attacked in The Conjuring and X-Men: The Animated Series, respectively), while Ed... is also there.
Ed: (holding up an RCA video camera) It's so small and light. (chuckles)
Together, they'll tackle the biggest case of their lives in Conjuring 1, while in Conjuring 2, they will tackle the, uh... other biggest case of their lives...
Ed: So you've heard this story before?
...in hit films that will lay the groundwork for a growing MCU-style shared spooky-verse (shows the posters for The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, Annabelle, Annabelle: Creation, and The Nun), but instead of aliens and action, it's demons and Latin (shows Ed reading a passage in Latin, then tossing holy water onto Carolyn, causing her to scream), and the franchise's signature touch: extremely long sequences of tension-building silence. (shows Carolyn lighting a match to see into a dark basement, only for it to burn out and force her to hurriedly light another one) Ugh, come on! Enough of the anticipation porn! You're giving me scare balls. (shows a pair of hands clapping behind Carolyn, causing her to turn around in fright) AAUGH!!
Prepare for two haunting tales about families with so many kids, you won't keep anyone straight... except the dude from Office Space.
Bill Lumbergh (Office Space): (to Peter Gibbons) I'm gonna need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow.
Watch as it becomes clear they bought their homes without doing even the most basic inspections...
Roger: I think we have a cellar or something.
...or tossing out any of the old haunted furniture...
Peggy: My ex-husband bought all the furniture with the house when we moved in.
...and got stuck living with every haunted house cliché in the book, like... creepy clocks...
Carolyn: The clock stopped at 3:07 AM...
...creepy fog, creepy lakes, creepy basements, creepy cellars (shows a ball being thrown from behind a shelf), creepy crawlspaces (shows one of the Perron daughters encountering Bathsheba in a crawlspace), creepy animals (shows a crow flying into a window and getting stuck in it), creepy children's toys...
Janet: (while playing with a Ouija board) Are there any spirits here...?
...creepy children's toys (shows April seeing a ghostly child after being hypnotized by Lorraine's jack-in-the-box), even more creepy children's toys...
Janet and Billy: (singing while looking at a zoetrope) There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.
...and enough creeeeepy history to fill an actual history book.
Lorraine: She was one of the women accused of witchcraft in Salem. / --when she was seven days old, Jedson caught her sacrificing it in front of the fireplace. / --cursed anyone who tried to take her land, and hung herself. / There was another boy who drowned in a pond here. / --Walker. [...] She had a boy named Rory who [...] disappeared in the woods. / Then she killed herself in the cellar. / And a woman who worked as a maid in a neighboring home [...] committed suicide too. / She possessed the mother to kill the child!
All right, that's enough; I think the real evil force at work here was the real estate company who kept selling the place.
Forget the epic demons of myth and legend, 'cause these ones are lame, unthreatening, and they smell like toots.
Carolyn: There's this... awful smell...
Roger: --she smelled like rotting meat.
Andrea: It reeked like something died.
Nancy: And stop farting. It really stinks.
Whether it's a witch who can be contained by a bedsheet (shows Bathsheba ripping through a bloody bedsheet), a nun with the same weaknesses as Rumpelstiltskin...
Lorraine: (to Valac) Your name gives me dominion over you, demon!
...or the ghost of Elvis Presley...
Ed: (singing in an Elvis impression, to the Hodgson children) Only fools rush in... (stops singing) Thank you.
...you can be sure that no matter what they're capable of, these beasts will stick to the conventional three-act structure of most screenplays.
Ed: --the three stages of demonic activity: infestation, oppression, and possession.
Let me guess; at minute 15, they save a cat. (shows the cover to Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting That You'll Ever Need! by Blake Snyder)
Carolyn: (reacting to Roger finding Sadie's corpse at 15 minutes into the film) Oh, my God!
...Or kill a dog. Eh, close enough.
So buckle up for a return to decent horror after years of found footage dreck (plays clips from Paranormal Activity, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, and Quarantine (2008)), that has an entire hall of spin-offs ready to go. Just try not to think about how fake these ghost hunters probably were; I mean, they couldn't be as full of it as the ones on TV, right?
Zak Bagans (Ghost Adventures): (narrating) My name is Zak Bagans. / If this is the portal to Hell, well, why don't you come up out of that ground and get us?
Ohh! It's horrible! MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE! NUN, TAKE ME AWAY!!
Starring: Slowly Walking Down Stairs (montage of characters slowly descending staircases); Lights Burning Out (montage of light bulbs exploding); Chairs Moving Around (montage of chairs moving on their own); "What Happened?" (montage of characters asking what happened); "Are You OK?" (montage of characters asking other characters if they're okay); Locked Doors (montage of characters struggling with locked doors); Slammed Doors (montage of characters slamming doors closed and doors slamming shut on their own); Bammed Doors (montage of entities pounding on doors); and Doors That Go "EEEEEEEEE" (montage of doors slowly creaking open).
Honest title for The Conjuring - Residence Evil. Titles designed by Robert Holtby.
Roger: Ed?
Woman: (jump-scaring Roger) Look what she made me do! / Look what she made me do!
OMG, it's Taylor Swift! (shows Taylor Swift as a zombie in the music video for "Look What You Made Me Do") (shrieks)
Trivia[]
Honest Trailers Commentary - The Conjuring
- Screen Junkies did a poll on Twitter to determine which horror movie they should to to coincide with the release of The Nun (2018). The options were The Conjuring 1 & 2 and the 2018 film Hereditary.
- In the associated episode of Honest Trailers Commentaries, the writers stated they were scared by the inexpensive but effective clapping scare in the first movie, but underwhelmed by the more expensive monsters in the sequel.
- Screen Junkies have produced Honest Trailers for several other horror films including Get Out, A Quiet Place, The Purge, The Blair Witch Project, It (2017), Halloween (1978) and Halloween (2018). See list of Honest Trailers for more.
Watch the full Honest Trailers Commentary on YouTube
Reception[]
Honest Trailers - The Conjuring has a 97.3% approval rating from YouTube viewers. Film media sites agreed with Screen Junkies that although The Conjuring movies are scary, they do often rely on silly tropes. Cinemablend said Screen Junkies' video "kind of nails it." Slashfilm said "Even though The Conjuring movies have crafted some fantastic thrills and chills, it’s hard to argue with the fact that the ghosts at the center of these movies can be thwarted with some pretty silly actions." ScreenRant said, "In the Screen Junkies Honest Trailer for the Conjuring series, the first two movies are accused of relying on cheap tricks and gimmicks long associated with haunted house movies, regardless of them being effective or not," but "while there is plenty to poke fun at in these movies when it comes to cliches, the Conjuring series has helped set a new precedent for modern popcorn horror that ought to be admired."
Production Credits[]
Video thumbnail for Honest Trailers - The Conjuring
Voiceover Narration by Jon Bailey
Title design by Robert Holtby
Producers - Dan Murrell, Spencer Gilbert, Joe Starr, and Max Dionne
Written by Spencer Gilbert, Joe Starr, Dan Murrell
Edited by Kevin Williamsen and TJ Nordaker
Assistant Editor: Emin Bassavand
External links[]
- Conjuring Series Honest Trailer: The Warrens Battle Haunted House Cliches - ScreenRant article
- ‘The Conjuring’ Honest Trailer: Ed & Lorraine Warren Are the Two Least Funny Ghostbusters - SlashFilm article
- Honest Trailers Pokes Fun at THE CONJURING Films - "Meet The Worlds Lamest Ghostbusters" - Geek Tyrant article
- The Conjuring Franchise’s Honest Trailer Goes After The Growing Shared Universe - CinemaBlend article