This is the beginning of me starting to err on the side of caution with Mr. James Wan

Rating: 2/10 (20 July 2013)

I don't understand the hype that this movie has been receiving, and I surely don't understand the reviews praising it. Did I see a different movie than everybody else?
This was terrible! I've been a huge James Wan fan ever since the first "Saw" movie was released. Then a few years ago, the trailer for "Insidious" was released and I was intrigued. I saw it on opening night and I was terrified throughout the entire movie. From the choice of camera angles, to the creepy violin music that rattled your nerves, to the devilishly haunting faces of the entities, it was probably my all-time favourite horror movie up to that point.
The Conjuring has NONE of that.
The first thirty minutes of the movie are the worst, but I had already assured myself that this was acceptable since the movie was probably taking time to warm up the audience and get us settled in. It's just too bad that it seemed to take the full 2 hours to "settle in" without ever really knowing what it's trying to accomplish. Any time a potential scare could be possible, it was left unrealized. This brings me to my next major point with this - the scares.
Boy oh boy, if I were to hand an award over to a film who supplied us with an overabundance of the cheapest and shoddiest scares, The Conjuring would take the cake. Doors closing loudly are NOT scary. Similarly, loud and pronounced orchestral music does little else except cause our bodies to jolt involuntarily. It DOES shock and scare people, but not in the way that horror movies are aimed to frighten. This leaves the viewer with a sense of doubt as to whether or not the film was truly scary, or just trying too hard to be scary. This is what I think a lot of these reviewers have fallen prey to; being duped into believing it was truly frightening.
Another point I want to draw on is the ending.....or so it seems. To me, the ending was dragged out for an hour and a half into its inevitable culmination. Demonic possessions, house needs to be cleansed, Ed and Lorraine Warren act as the heroes to defuse the situation. yadda yadda yadda. It's all been done before. That wouldn't be so bad if things were actually scary, but they simply aren't. Towards the last 20 minutes, the viewer must succumb to a ridiculous and appalling (action!!???) scene in which people are getting flung around the room, leading to a juxtaposition of hysterical laughter. What's sad about this is that I think Wan was REALLY aiming for that to be scary.
Now they already have a sequel in the works, before even receiving an attainable statistic on how well this movie will fare. I see that as slight arrogance on Wan's part, but with the predictability of today's audience market, he will succeed.