The Conjuring follows the Perron Family (consisting of Carolyn, Roger, and their five daughters) who have just moved into a new house. The family quickly realizes that something inhuman and insidious is present in the house after numerous unexplainable paranormal occurrences. After a night on which Carolyn gets trapped in the basement and their eldest daughter is attacked in her room, Carolyn decides to get help from Ed and Lorraine Warren, a demon/ghost hunting power couple. The Warrens start their investigation but when the haunting starts to affect their own family they have to fight harder than they ever have before.Did I scare you? No? Well it works better with video reviews, oh well. The Conjuring is a haunted house movie directed by horror-genius and puppeteer, James Wan. The film stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Varmiga as the real life demonologists, Ed and Lorraine Warren. It also features Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston as the parents of the Perron family.
When I first saw The Conjuring I enjoyed it a lot and after re-watching it, I was once again completely taken aback! It doesn't happen a lot that a horror film can still entertain and scare me the second time I watch it the way this did. This proves to me that The Conjuring truly could go down as a great haunted house movie.
I've heard a lot of people criticize The Conjuring because they say it "doesn't bring anything new the genre." Really? Just because a movie is similar to others, it doesn't mean that it's not innovative or "new." James Wan told a story that has been told before, but still managed to make it his own. That is what makes The Conjuring so interesting and fun to watch.
Although there are some jump scares throughout, it's not what the film relies on to actually scare you. No, the truly scary scenes are scary thanks to more atmospheric things like other characters' performances and James Wan's incredible ability to make it feel like you're the character experiencing what's happening. One way he accomplishes this, is by only showing what the characters see, when they see it. A good example of this is the scene in which Roger is walking through the house at night and the camera only pans to where he looks.
I want to congratulate Wan on this film. There are so many little things he added that make the movie so great. One being the way he made several scenes look like they came straight from a 70's classic. The movie is also filled with really interesting POV and spinning shots that make you feel like you're in the film.
Wan also did a fantastic job with the scary scenes. One scene in particular (where one girl sees someone is standing by her doorway while her sister doesn't see anyone) really frightened me. It was done extremely well, without even showing anything. Wan also used the "hide and clap" game the girls play in a very creepy and effective way to further the story.
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| One of my favorite scenes. |
However, The Conjuring is far from perfect, one of the biggest gripes I have with the film is that there are way to many characters in the Perron family. Because there are so many people, it's extremely hard to properly develop all of them. This led to me not really caring about some of the daughters (I cant even remember most of their names.)
Another thing that bothered me was the ghost make-up. While Bathesheba was done pretty well, the other spirits looked very cheap (much like the ghosts from Insidious.) Throughout the film there were also some cheesy voice over effects that didn't fit in with the atmosphere at all, but in the end this wasn't enough to actually take away from the film's overall experience.
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| Ohh, Bathesheba, baby, why you so cute, beau? |
All in all I think The Conjuring is a really well made and actually scary horror film. While it does fall a bit short with the character development and make up effects, it makes up for it with a fantastic story and great cinematography. The film did end a bit abruptly, but the final act is still a very entertaining spectacle that reaches a gratifying climax.
With a sequel and a prequel coming up, I am very excited to see where the series is going, I just wish James Wan would reprise his roll as director because clearly he knows what he's doing...
Rating 7/10
A few months back I wrote another review for this but decided to re-write it. Check out the original here!
