Everything good but the script

Rating: 6/10 (4 August 2014)

Acting, Direction, Cinematography, Effects, all of these are good and all will have you jumping in places. The film's problem is that the script is nearly 100% flat exposition and nearly 0% character development. This means that you don't care what happens to the characters, you aren't gripped.
The story also leads you into some dead ends. Vera Farmiga's character saw something which traumatised her in one of her previous exorcisms - does it tie into the main story? Do we find out what it was? Nope.
You work out how the story is going to end before the Investigators do, which is unsatisfying from a denouement point of view.
There is an entire menagerie of ghosts, not just the main one. This destroys the focus of the story.
Much of the spooky goings on are VERY similar to other films, The Exorcist, The Grudge - you'd be better off watching those.
Compare this to Skeleton Key or What Lies Beneath, how the character's stories pull you in, how original they were, how there was a twist. Next to these, The Conjuring comes off like an extended and well-produced episode of Ghost Adventures.