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Welcome, Popversians, to another edition of The Coldest Open, the column where I, your humble horror host, examine the history of scary cinema through the first moments of its standout entries. If you keep up with your current horror movies, you know that we are just a few days away from the release of The Conjuring: Last Rites, the film that promises to be the last story in the megahit horror franchise of the same name. With that in mind, I thought we'd take a peek at the moments that started it all - the introduction of James Wan's The Conjuring.

The way Coldest Open works is this: I'm going to be breaking down five different hallmarks of every great cold open in horror, then judging whether the movie in question pulls them off. If so, that hallmark will get ranked with a "Cold" verdict; if not, it'll get ranked with a "warm." At the end, we'll tally up those verdicts and determine a temperature, ranging all the way from Lukewarm to Absolute Zero.

So gather up your crucifix and/or your 1970s vintage wear (I don't know which keeps the demons at bay better), and let's plunge into this.

The Conjuring's Cold-Blooded Killer

Analyzing the villain in the opening moments of is a fascinating task, because the evil entity we meet in the movie's cold open is not actually the same villain we follow throughout the rest of the movie. It is, however, one that will greatly matter to The Conjuring franchise, and who will actually star in not one, not two, but three movies in The Conjuring universe later. I'm talking, of course, about haunted doll Annabelle.

There's nothing particularly revolutionary about Annabelle's introduction in this film, even her design is something that we've probably seen before. However, Wan's introduction of her presence through haunting flashbacks and the occasional unmoving shot of her dead eyes is successful on two levels - first, it is memorable enough to make her stand out in the crowded field of "creepy dolls of horror" and second, it is enough to introduce the kind of ethereal, spiritual nature of the horror that Ed and Lorraine Warren are up against.

There's a saying that goes something like, "If you can't be the first, be the best," and in terms of haunted dolls, it's hard to argue Annabelle didn't follow that advice.

Verdict: Cold

The Conjuring's First Person to Get Iced

Let me just say, before we start here, that I am cheating in this category. This is usually where I rate the first person to die in a horror movie, and in the opening moments of The Conjuring, no such deaths occur. However, we do meet two victims of supernatural horror in these first six minutes, so I figure they'll work for our purposes here. Er, rather, they won't work, and that's kinda the point.

As much as Annabelle is very quickly established as a demonic threat to the people of this universe, her owners - nurses Debbie and Camilla - don't do much to elicit empathy. Maybe it's just me, but I think you can't spell "scare" without "care," - which is to say, if I can't relate to or feel bad for or enjoy the presence of the movie's first victim(s), their impending demise doesn't have much of a punch.

Such is the case for the movie's opening characters, who willfully let a demon into their homes under the guise of a friendly spirit and then, when things turn south, decide to deal with this terror beyond mortal reckoning by... throwing it in a trash can outside? Then, when notes begin appearing from the entity and floor-shaking sounds start pounding on the walls, there's a moment of actual shock on their faces when they open the door and find Annabelle.

Just what were you expecting, gang? And moreover, how did the pair of you get those nursing degrees?

Verdict: Warm

The Conjuring's Polar Plot Intro

Not long after the surprise/not-surprise visit from their literal housemate, Debbie and Camilla are revealed to have been part of a flashback this entire time. What's actually going on in this intro is that main characters Ed and Lorraine Warren (played by the ever-watchable Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are giving a talk to a college lecture-style room full of folks interested in the paranormal. As the pair so readily admit through clunky dialogue, the Annabelle story's only purpose was actually to introduce that the Warrens hunt demons.

To be fair, you cannot call this a waste of time, since it is essential for kicking off three more entries into this film saga later on. However, it's a little tough not to feel frustrated when, after the five-ish minutes we spent being scared alongside the Annabelle-haunted roommates, a Star Wars-style plot crawl appears to inform us that this movie is about a different case. 

Verdict: Warm

The Conjuring's Frozen Snapshots

I touched on the idea that Annabelle's design isn't exactly the most original thing in horror movie making, and while I think that's OK for her character, it also speaks to a lack of visual creativity throughout this intro. The movie doesn't try very hard to make you feel that Debbie and Camilla's apartment is a menacing place, save for turning off the lights and working a few "what's around the corner" shots onto the screen. Plus, the intro has a monotone, yellow-tinted filter over it, something like the kind that a lot of mid-2000s horror movies experimented with and (thankfully) left behind. Perhaps this choice was meant to give the opener a "vintage" look, but that came out as simply "dated." 

Verdict: Warm

The Conjuring's Bone-Chilling Music

At last, we get to what really, completely works about the opening of The Conjuring, and that is the music. Or, rather, just the use of sound itself. From the atonal chords fighting for dominance in the first few seconds of the WB logo to the whispery strings behind Debbie and Camilla's retelling of the horrors they experienced with Annabelle, this movie's music is just so good at setting the tone that all of its other sins are forgotten. Huge props to composer (and frequent James Wan collaborator) Joseph Bishara for pulling that off.

Verdict: Cold

The Conjuring's Cold Open Temperature: Slight Chill

Here's what sucks: I have spent almost the entirety of this article shitting on a movie that I genuinely like (such is the life of a critic; wish it not upon the worst of your enemies). And I'm not nuts about that because, for all of its cold open's many flaws, this movie is scary! Hell, this cold open is scary! I rewatched the intro for this piece and, though I was constantly writing down what I was going to pick apart, I wasn't bored for an instant.

So what's the lesson here? Hell if I know - maybe that fear is such a primal emotion that it transcends culturally developed things like narrative and taste? Maybe. Or maybe it's just that, to his credit, James Wan knows how to create art that's exactly what it needs to be, and doesn't spend a ton of time crafting it into anything more. After all - it worked, didn't it? This movie spawned a goshdarn franchise, what have you done lately?

Besides not let a haunted doll into your house.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." Join Popverse's weekly explorations of the best opening moments of horror cinema in The Coldest Open, and then check out:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.