Conclusion

The volume concludes with “What Exactly is Conjured in The Conjuring?” After all, if the film is called The Conjuring, something must have been summoned or some kind of magic has been wrought, and yet there is no literal conjuring in the film. The generic title instead gives way to the idea that what is conjured is, thus, “the underlying anxieties of the vulnerable everyman,” not to mention a spate of imitators in its wake. What is conjured is the audience’s fear, in a virtuoso horror film.