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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1505 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 23, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I recently had some houseguests, The conjuring came up on movie night, and the guy's girlfriend turned out to be a huge fan. They're competently done horror films, but I was a little bit surprised to find out that she thinks that they're real, and it took an effort of will for me to not go overboard poking holes in the Warrens. So now I've got all these thoughts about The conjuring.

Even in a film that glazes them, you can see the underlying shape of the grift. The mythos doesn't match up with other supernatural fiction, it matches up with the vague folk-Catholicism of a dumb person. Why is Ed Warren, who knows all there is to know about demons and exorcism rituals, less supernaturally potent than a Catholic priest, who probably thinks demons are imaginary? Why only a Catholic priest, why not a minister or a voodoo guy? Why is it relevant that the satanic witch ghost had a relative who was killed in the Salem witch trials? In the universe of The Conjuring, did the witch trials find real witches, rather than it just being a jilted lover and ergot poisoning? Just seems like such a unnecessary story element. Catching an actual witch at a witch trial is usually a punchline, like in Widows Bay or Treehouse of Horror. In the 70s did median American believe the Salem witch trials were real?

When a story is presented as fiction, this kind of inconsistency doesn't bother me as much, I don't ask why Patrick Swayze can walk through walls but not through floors, because ghost doesn't pretend to be a documentary.

Now I'm wondering if there has ever been a horror movie which was actually based on (not "inspired by") true events and didn't take major dramatic license. I suppose Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, although it's more of a thriller than a horror film. Likewise assorted films about real-life serial killers (Gacy, Dahmer etc.).

I'm not objecting to dramatic license, I'm objecting to the "mythos" and metaphysics. Whether the ghost actually dragged someone around a basement or held a door shut doesn't bother me nearly as much as the Salem Witch Trials thing.

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