Quite good

Rating: 7/10 (23 May 2018)

Supernatural sleuths Ed and Lorraine Warren take on another case, this time helping a single-parent Mum in Enfield whose daughter appears to be subjected to nastiness from someone who died in the house.
"Based On True Events." Well, OK. This is not a statement I have much faith in at the best of times and I have even less in the case of supernatural films, much as I might enjoy the movie.
There was a reasonably well documented "Enfield Poltergeist". This film fictionalises, augments, and treats the thing as a genuine supernatural manifestation. It should be noted that the movie, while using some real names, locations and alleged events, is otherwise entirely fictional.
Which doesn't mean it's not a good horror film, because it is. It has a stealthy growth of dread, and some genuinely scary moments of which only a couple are accompanied by abrupt blaring orchestral hits. The house interiors are grim (but Dad left, and Mum has no money, so that's OK), and the exteriors are battered by too much torrential rain (and rain which rather too obviously comes from overhead rain gantries, and is there really that much water in Enfield basements?), but the down-at-heel suburbia setting is effectively atmospheric nonetheless.
Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise the Warrens from The Conjuring, but this film belongs to Madison Wolfe, 13 when this was filmed. I was going to sing the praises of a young British actress, but she is a Louisiana native delivering a perfect suburban London accent as part of a terrific performance of a terrified, haunted, and possibly possessed, child.
As horror films go, this one is quite good.