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The Conjuring opens on Friday and I can easily say it’s the scariest movie I’ve seen in about a decade!

I haven’t been this scared in a movie theater since The Ring in 2002. I found myself jumping and screaming – and that’s not something I ever do in movies. 

The movie was so good that I decided to skip the BET Awards and fly out to San Francisco to sit down with the cast. Patrick Wilson told me about how he met Lorraine Warren for the first time. Ron Livingston explained what it was like on set during filming

But when I got the chance to sit down with the director James Wan, the mastermind behind The Conjuring, I found out a few secrets that really helped explain why it’s so damn scary.

So here are 5 interesting facts I’ve learned about the movie that explains why it will scare your pants off.

1. James Wan had something to prove when making this film.

He explained, “After Saw, I’ve become known as the grandfather of torture porn. That kind of annoyed me.” So he decided that this film was going to show people that “there are many ways to scare people other than throwing buckets of blood.”

2. You get a real sense of who the characters are, even though there are a lot of them. More chances to scare you! 

James revealed, “When I first came on to the project, they condensed the 5 girls into just 2 girls. I said if we want to be true to the family, we have to put the five girls back in there. Having a family 7 units of people has a very different dynamic than just having 2 kids.”

3. The casting is phenomenal

“The actors brought so much to the film. Part of the reason that the movie works is because of everyone in the film, from Patrick, Vera, Ron, and Lily to the six kids,” Wan said.

4. The cast pushed their emotional boundaries. 

Actress Joey King actually cried for a scene, over and over and over again for each take. James told us that he picked each girl based on who could play the situations that arise in the movie. As for our girl Joey, “She would just cry, her eyes would just tremble.” It makes for one of the scariest parts of the whole movie. 

5. There was enough money to do it all.

There was no cutting corners, so the film really sells each chill, thrill and scream. “I had the studio’s full creative support,” Wan says. “They let me make the movie I wanted to make. I had the financial support and the time I wanted to shoot the film. That made a whole lot of difference.”

The Conjuring is in theaters this Friday.