The Conjuring

Reviews from the Dark Side presents
The Conjuring
Released 7/19/13, now in theaters

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga star as real life paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, in The Conjuring.  The Conjuring recounts the story of the Warren's most disturbing case.  The movie is billed as one of the scariest in recent memory.  The discerning horror connoisseur that I am, I have to be convinced of this.  It has much to live up to considering the release of Sinister last year which I believe is one of the best horror movies ever made.  Well, it was easily the best one that's been made in the last 10 years or so.  Doing horror well is tricky business.  Good trailers mean nothing if the scary turns into cheesy. 

In the early 1970's Roger and Carolyn Perron (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) move into a dilapidated farm house in Rhode Island with their five daughters.  Almost immediately, weird occurrences begin happening including the family dog refusing to enter the house and strange bruises developing on Carolyn's body.  When more strangeness begins affecting their daughters, Carolyn seeks the aid of renowned paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren.  Ed is initially reluctant to take the case as one the couple's last cases took a significant toll on his wife.  However, Lorraine takes pity on the distraught mother and agrees to help.

Immediately upon entering the Perron's home, the clairvoyant Lorraine, feels a dark presence.  The Warrens later discover the house and many acres surrounding it once belonged to a suspected witch and her husband.  Chilling events led to the death of the couple's one week old child and the witch's ritual suicide and curse of the land.  Throughout history, people who have lived on the land have hideously died.  Several spirits inhabit the area now including the evil witch.  And the Warrens have deduced the witch has latched on to a member of the Perron family to personally see to the family's total demise. 

The Conjuring provides you with it's share of heart racing, don't-look-in-there moments.  It slowly builds an atmosphere of dread that makes you intent on seeing this through to the end.  So, it immediately has a leg up on the Paranormal Activity series.  But, ultimately the story doesn't culminate into something you haven't seen before.  Sure, the last 15 minutes or so where actual demonic possession takes place is decent, but I think everyone on the planet has seen The Exorcist and a dozen other possession movies.  Decent doesn't quite cut it here.  I'm looking for special.  This type of horror was done better in last year's good, but forgettable, The Possession. 

Of course, the events in The Conjuring are only made possible because the bad things are happening to stupid people.  The movie does attempt to address why the family doesn't simply move out of the house but it's a bit of lame explanation.  The patriarch has witnessed firsthand that the family dog doesn't want to enter the house from day one.  The dog is found dead the next morning.  Birds randomly kamikaze the house.  One of his daughters sleepwalks and bangs her head repeatedly against a wardrobe.  His other daughters are scared out of their minds.  His wife receives nightly bruises.  And, you don't move because no one would take in a family of seven?  That may be, but, I would think living in your car would be preferable to imminent death!  As we discover later, it wouldn't have made a difference where they had gone as the evil entity had latched itself to the family, but he didn't know that at the time he made the statement. 

The Conjuring is not a total loss.  There are good performances by both Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as Ed and Lorraine Warren.  All Hell breaks loose in the final 15 minutes which I stated earlier is moderately effective.  The film overall is well directed by James Wan.  The issue is I think he's directed better movies.  He's directed the first Saw and received producer credits on the other chapters in the series (say what you will, I liked the franchise).  He's also directed Insidious and Death Sentence, two other movies I believe are superior to The Conjuring.

I realize The Conjuring is based on a true story so the details of it cannot be totally overhauled.  But I prefer my horror to end a little bit on the disturbed side.  Happy endings don't really fit in horror for me because there's nothing happy about the occurrences in these movies.  This isn't necessarily a weakness of The Conjuring.  It's just my personal preference. 

In the words of Flavor Flav, "don't believe the hype" about The Conjuring.  It's not the scariest thing you've ever seen.  Don't be fooled by the commercials depicting the audience jumping out of their seats.  It will barely make the hairs on the back of your neck stand.  It is a well-acted movie and for that I will give it some credit.  But, if you're really looking for something thought provoking or disturbing, I might suggest (other than my obvious choice) movies such as Insidious, Mama, The Purge, I Spit on Your Grave (remake), The Mist, The Strangers, or Drag Me to Hell as better options.  The Conjuring doesn't come close to the disturbing dread of Sinister.  Sorry to keep invoking that movie, as I'm sure some of you are tired of hearing me talk about it.  But, I can't help but make the comparison.  For me, it's the new benchmark of horror.  The Conjuring falls well short of it. 

The Dark Lord of Sith says:

*** stars


Ratings Legend
Zero *= Don't waste your time. Pure dreck! Dreck is too good for this! Blind me please!
1 *= Fuggedaboutit!
2 *= Average, Mediocre, Nothing Special
3 *= Good viewing. Much better than a poke in the eye.
4 *= Great. Could possibly foot the price of a non-Matinee.
5 *= Pure eye candy. Hall of Fame material here.