The Conjuring

"Don't summon the devil, don't call the priest ..."

I was one of a lucky few to have seen The Conjuring at a preview screening for FrightFest 2013.

I went in totally cold, not having seen a trailer, nor knowing anything about the story or plot and it turned out to be one of the best scary horror movies I have ever seen.

The Conjuring is a nail-biting, hiding-behind-hands movie. If you've been disappointed with the likes of Paranormal Acivity and Insidious, this one is likely to deliver in areas where they failed.

It tells the supposedly true story of two paranormal investigators, who aim to rid families and properties of their suspected supernatural visitations, either by disproving them (if they turn out to be just creaky floorboards or slamming doors) or tackling them head-on if not. A leap of faith is required to buy into this theme but if you're okay with it, then the movies plays out pretty well within its genre confines.

The particular incident they are brought in to deal with is described as surrounding a spirit 'so malevolent' it was hidden from the public until only now. In fairly Amityville-like circumstances, a family move into a new house and discover the basement is sealed; boarded-up behind a doorway.

It's not at all surprising what follows, once they decide to take a look in the basement but it is surprising how James Wan has managed to take such a tired theme of haunting and possession and revive it so convincingly.

I am no stranger to these kind of movies but this one truly tops them all for tension and terror. I really enjoyed Sinister recently, which I found to be equally as scary but it lost its way a bit towards the end, whereas The Conjuring keeps tempo and has a fairly satisfying conclusion.

I particularly liked the way the film took a turn for the comical somewhere in the middle, only for perhaps five minutes, then came back firing on all cylinders as it headed to the finale. If this was intentional, to lure us into a false sense of security, it worked beautifully.

If you're the type to poo-poo this genre in general, I can't see you suddenly being converted to a believer but, if you enjoy classic horror like The Exorcist, The Amityville Horror and Poltergeist, I can almost guarantee The Conjuring won't disappoint.

It's several years since this film was released, and I have to say that none of the shine has come off it, the quality is still very much there, the film is a classic. As a horror it packs in some real scares, but there is so much more to it, it has tension, a story, and some real intrigue, possibly because of the fact that it was inspired by real life events.

Several films have followed, sequels and spin offs, but none of them come close to this, the only Horror film for many years to actually give me a few scares.

Many of the scares are so memorable, because they are so well executed, they got the balance just right.

Incredibly well acted, the performances are one of the film's best assets, but there are many besides.

I'd have moved! It's a classic, 9/10.

The Conjuring is a fairly classical horror/haunted house/exorcism movie. That was pretty much what I was hoping for. Slow and creepy build up to a final outburst and confrontation with an evil entity. This is a good movie although it is not really something new in terms of story. It is fairly impossible not to think about, and make comparisons with, The Amityville Horror when seeing this movie. I do not think it really deserves the glowing 9 or 10 star ratings that I have seen but it certainly do not merit those 1 or 2 star ones either. What were these people expecting? This is a solid effort of making a movie along the classical lines of supernatural possession. As I wrote, it is not really something new, but it is nice to see a new movie using this kind of story without just turning it into a CGI gore-feast. Sure, the movie also includes the traditional pitfalls that most horror movies apparently must have like people thinking it is a good idea to walk down into the dark and scary basement all alone in the middle of the night.

One thing that irked me with the movie though was the idea of phantoms and performing exorcism being presented as kind of normal and accepted things. Of the movie would have played itself out 70 or so years earlier maybe but in the 1970′s? It just felt somewhat surreal to see this "ghosthunter" make presentations and talk to people like supernatural entities and the practice of exorcism was just things that happened.

The we have the ending of course. Not that it was overly bad but Christ, if you are going to do an exorcism then do it damn it. Do not stop the procedure and look lost every time something goes bump.

Anyway, I was not sure whether I was going to be disappointed or pleased when sitting down to watch this movie. On the whole I was pleased. It was a nice to watch a movie that was going back to the traditional values in horror movie making and it was as well implemented as one could expect.

Just saw it yesterday in Nocturna Fim Festival. It was an outstanding film. So well done, scripted and acted. The movie doesn't have any mercy on the audience and it's so disturbing you won't believe until you see.

I'm not gonna enter in details or spoilers, just gonna let you now it a movie that gonna stay for you for a while after you see it. It also opens a door for becoming quite a paranormal investigator myself, looking up for all the details mentioned in the movie, and getting amazed by it' accuracy.

This film it's made to become a new classic in the horror genre, not only because it's quality, but because it's fright factor.

The first half of the movie it's paced down, let you know and love the characters. but the second half! oh boy! it's so damn chilling it will keep you gasping and crawling your hands.

Very well done

Like comedy, the horror genre can be a very subjective beast, finding or missing its mark as much do to its craft and execution as it does the particular individual who plops themselves into a theater seat. If something isn't scary to someone – someone who earnestly believes that of course – then a fright flick has failed at its core intent. Then we have something like James Wan's The Conjuring, an artful, confident throwback that succeeds in maintaining a high tensile level of pressure on our senses, crafting vital jump scares, a potent human element and all encompassing technical prowess. This is the type of brave, but stripped down horror filmmaking that forces you to analyze other elements besides just the full effectiveness of its frightening intent. Plus it's scary as hell.

The Conjuring completes a modern supernatural horror film trifecta started with Wan's own Insidious in 2010 and bridged by last year's unsettling Sinister. With these films the genre has proved that this is far from a dead, now inherently clichéd area of cinema and this effort is perhaps the best of all three. After breaking onto the scene in a big way with the trend setting Saw, the director took a bit of creative detour in the eyes of most with revenge thriller Death Sentence and supernatural doll flick Dead Silence (which is vastly underrated by the way) before rebounding with the aforementioned Insidious. For The Conjuring it seems Wan has taken everything he's learned – congealing everything he's found to be effective – and assembled them exquisitely and with ample new flare to boot.

The Conjuring pulls its inspiration from a case file of famed demonologists and paranormal investigators the Warrens, the husband and wife team who's other journeys inspired films such as The Amityville Horror. Here they are played respectively by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga who are now both genre regulars with roles in Insidious and the upcoming Chapter 2 due this year for the gentleman and Orphan and television's Psycho prequel Bates Motel for Farmiga. We've all seen the painful trope of priests, exorcists, psychics and every nut-job in between showing up at the eleventh hour to save a haunted family but the way they're approached in The Conjuring stands as one of the film's greatest strengths.

Though it's something that should be completely obvious out of the gate (but still something those inspired by the Warren's stories forget) this is just as much their story as those experiencing the phenomena. In giving nearly as much screen time to this duo as it does the Perron's (a seven family troop lead by actors Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor and their five daughters) we grow and involve with these nine individuals so when things get terrifying we not only feel just as much for everyone on screen but everyone gets a satisfying arc. It's something so rare in most horror films. Though this dynamic is certainly not presented through these two separate camps – the fearful and the experts – but the men bond over their love of cars and their wives and the women over the unfathomable: harm befalling their children. It's a satisfying an utterly untapped approach for the genre.

But "wait, wait" you proclaim "this is a horror movie after all, stop talking about the little girls and get to the scares!" Graciously, somewhat rude reader. The Conjuring is creepy, intermittently nightmarish, tense, gross, unsettling, and in its purest form, scary. This is the type of film that dares you not to hug yourself or laugh nervously in the hopes you deflect some iota of the sensation of primal fear. But these emotions are never extracted in a manipulative fashion and the jump scares are orchestrated effectively through physical objects falling, bumping, banging and generally causing off-putting noises, not blaring, out of context musical chords.

The camera work is also fantastic employing every angle imaginable and even some very impressive point of view and upside-down-spin shots. It's easily Wan's best directed effort to date but never one that lets its style eclipse the mood. Similarly his use of sound both in the score (which utilizes your average brooding options as well as sharp, grating notes that call back to horror of days gone by) and practical noises such as a strained rope swinging or a door slamming shut. Again, it all adds to the experience and in eventually pulling of the major frights.

Like most fare of this nature, the restrained tension does take a bit of a hit heading into the finale, as subtlety is sacrificed for more overt horror to resolve the story. Thankfully this change in approach is handled with just as much aplomb and also manages to deliver one of the most effective exorcism sequences in recent memory – a victory made all the more notable thanks to the generally overexposed and silly nature of that staple. It's not the perfect ending that the previous acts demanded but one that by no means insults the audience and still remains scary (if in a more upfront manner).

Perhaps the biggest compliment I can pay The Conjuring is that it actually deserves a sequel. There are tales of the Warrens left to tell and the acting is uniformly strong enough that revisiting these characters would be more a treat then a chore. It takes a skillful filmmaker to take well worn themes and approaches (while avoiding gore and a high body count to boot) and make them seem as original as ever. Coming from a huge horror buff and one that experiences more disappointments then the average soul can handle, I can earnestly say The Conjuring is one of the best ever and what can serve as a fantastic induction into the genre for the uninitiated.