Some Great Scares. Almost Got it Right.

Rating: 6/10 (1 August 2013)

This film is essentially The Exorcist meets Amityville Horror.
My two major complaints with the movie: 1) Poor pacing that gave a roller-coaster effect, with long drawn out boredom accompanied by jump-out-of-your-seat shots that lasted a mere seconds, 2) The unfortunate and too many typical and routine scenes that made this just another scary movie.
My friend and I both got five or so great jumps from the scare shots. But where Director Woo finally got close to seriously and deeply scaring me was with the exorcism that takes place in the basement towards the end. The jump scenes were great, but The Conjurer is the one 'scary movie' that finally comes close to matching The Exorcist in terms of being evil. Almost got there, but - UGH.... Woo let the moment and potential slip away. What could have been true horror turned out to be just some really excellent scary spots.
Since I found The Exorcist to be the most horrific and honest "horror" movie I have seen in my 45 years watching movies, I rate all others from that. To me, The Exorcist is so evil, I won't watch it alone. I tried once, about seven years ago, and it scared me so bad, I had to stop and put on a Disney movie to un-scare me (seriously.) The acting here was by and large fantastic, except the young actress playing the youngest of the daughters, who delivered her lines poorly... she sadly couldn't pull off the roll. Once again, for a horror film, I've come to expect uneventful or poor acting, but the cast did a fine job here for a change.
The Conjurer was pretty darn scary at points, generally well-done, and was worth the cost of seeing at the theater. Would I see it again? No. Would I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of scary flicks? Oh yeah! I'm just disappointed that Woo put the breaks on right when he was developing what could have been a Horror Classic to match that of The Exorcist. Dang! So Close!