A pair of throwbacks proves there's life in films for grown-ups, one way or another. Elizabeth Kerr reports.

Making a sweeping claim that anyone over the age of 14 can't enjoy a mindless action movie or a superhero or two is patently false. Similarly, the belief that anyone under 30 can't get into a "real" drama or movie that lacks CGI is wrong. But you wouldn't know that if were left up to the dudes in the boardrooms where what movies get made and when are decided. Targeted marketing is exclusive and it's also standard operating procedure now. Granted, there may be a nugget of truth in both ideas. How often do you hear the old fogeys - 40 or so - say The Avengers gave them a headache, and their kids spout off about how "cheap" and "slow" films like the original Psycho and Star Wars are? Frequently, no doubt.

Rules are, however, meant to be broken, which can mean a pleasant surprise for everyone. In 2010, Red became a US$200 million hit with a cast that had an average age of around 57, which is practically unheard of these days. It had no teenagers, no sparkly vampires and no hardbodies going "undercover" at the beach. It did have Bruce Willis being his usual cool operator self and Helen "The Queen" Mirren firing off multiple rounds from a high-powered cannon. The whippersnapper was 41-year-old Karl Urban. The movie was terrible, but its mindless one-joke concept worked. Cue the sequel.

By the same token, people love to be scared. Horror buffs are myriad, but they're also a picky lot. With the rise of torture porn and egregious gore a so-called horror film's value has become a matter of how gross it was. Marketing now can include news of how many people walked out of a screening. So when The Conjuring started its march to world domination in July, it proved that $20 million and a healthy dose of creativity still go a long way. In the span of two weeks, Red 2 (cast average age now 59) and The Conjuring will bring their old fogey ways to theaters and prove that youth and beauty can be overrated. Or at least one will.

Based on an old case file dug up from real life ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren - the couple that investigated the Amityville haunting - The Conjuring is the kind of old-fashioned creepfest that relies on simple camera tricks, cinematography, creaking floorboards and performance to find its scares. In the early 1970s, Carolyn and Roger Perron (Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston) move their five daughters to an old country house in Rhode Island. No sooner do they move in than things start to go bump in the night, to the point that the family is abjectly terrified and turn to the Warrens for help. Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) is vaguely clairvoyant, and Ed (Patrick Wilson, rocking the '70s look) is the hardware and logistics guy. They debunk as many claims to hauntings as they resolve, but the minute Lorraine steps into the Perrons' house she knows there's something horribly wrong.

Director James Wan is best known as one of the maestros of the torture horror movement, having practically founded it with Saw. But here he reels it in and falls back on classic Hollywood filmmaking. He manages to infuse sudden jumps, bangs, weird shadows, dark corners and groaning stairs with just the right amount of tension in every frame, and ratchet it up a notch when need be. But he gets help from a stellar cast that make you believe their fear absolutely. Indie darling Taylor has a kind of maternal exasperation that makes her real, and Livingston is just the right amount of befuddled. Skeptical, but given what he sees in his home, willing to put that aside for the greater good. But he still ventures into the dark basement alone (don't, you fool!). Wilson at this point has a lock on solid, domestic integrity in leading men. He never wavers in his belief and his work, but he's intensely human.

But the real star is Farmiga as the strong but simultaneously fragile Lorraine. The Conjuring hints (wisely) at a traumatic exorcism in the Warrens' past that has made Ed cautious on Lorraine's behalf and which informs her every action - as does her faith, which is ever so delicately hinted at but never fully explored. Farmiga is excellent in conveying controlled fear with a gesture or a look, and never lets the Warrens be played as kooks, though she acknowledges that perception at a lecture. She's the glue that binds the movie together and keeps it together when the familiar final acts starts to unfold.

And familiar is the best phrase to describe Red 2, a near carbon copy of the first film, complete with ambitious CIA operative, Horton (Neal McDonough), a great deal of city hopping - European this time - and the spinning car trick. Horton is sent to eliminate the REDs when an unsavory and politically sensitive document surfaces on WikiLeaks and they marshal their vast network of lethal allies to bust the conspiracy wide open. New to the game is Catherine Zeta-Jones as Frank's (Bruce Willis) old Russian girlfriend from his spying days, Katja - which irks his current girlfriend, adventure-starved Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker) - Korean actor Lee Byung-hun (the whelp this time, at 43) as a crooked operative whom Frank put in jail years before and Anthony Hopkins as a weapons genius who may or may not be crazy.

Director Dean Parisot has done a boatload of television and it shows: the pacing and snappy jump from one segment to the next feel like a filmmaker working in 12-minute blocks as well as one that's been let loose with a huge budget. He does coax out a few genuinely entertaining moments, largely courtesy of its stars. Helen Mirren as retired MI6 wetworks specialist Victoria and John Malkovich as the paranoid and fully armed Marvin are consistently charming. The characters are still paper thin and the joke still has one dimension, though it goes further this time in suggesting that Victoria still has, gasp, a sex drive and a romantic life. At her age! If you enjoyed the mindless shenanigans of the old folks the first time around, Red 2 will probably do the trick. Because it's the same movie. Still, it's nice to see the elder statespersons of style and casting get some respect. Talk about showing 'em how it's done.

The Conjuring opened in Hong Kong on Thursday. Red 2 opens September 5

(HK Edition 08/30/2013 page7)