What's with the hype?

Rating: 6/10 (23 September 2018)

Horror is one of my favorite genres in film, I think it says a lot about our nature and it takes a lot of skill to create a truly frightening experience for moviegoers. I stayed away from The Conjuring series because I felt it had everything that's boring and predictable about modern American horror just by reading the accolades it got. I wasn't interested in Annabelle or The Nun or any other James Wan related flick for that matter -though the first Saw is really ok just for the ending. I have a lot of friends and follow a lot of critics whose opinions I respect a lot and they all praise this film so much that I though "Well, there MUST be something really cool about it. I might be missing something good". And I rented it and watched it at 1 AM with all the lights turned off and... You know, all the ritual for horror fans. I wasn't disappointed, it was what I expected: a well directed, well acted (Farmiga and Wilson are amazing actors) mediocre jump-scare fest. It is by no means a bad film, but i isn't worth of it's hype and in no way deserves to have so many sequels and spin-offs. If this is the best of the series, how bland and generic could the rest be? I'm really surprised to see how many people connect with this when it delivers a poor atmosphere, the scares are really dull and uninspiring, the supernatural makeup is terrible. The best scene for me was the hair-pulling possession, that was really nice, but other than that I felt it never delivered anything new to the genre or even something remotely frightening. It was just ok, and it saddens me to think this type of film (along with Insidious and Sinister, which I haven't seen either and after this experience I'm not planning on never seeing them at all) is what American horror is now about. How dull! I love The VVitch for it's tense atmosphere and for being such a beautiful portray of witch-era tales, and Hereditary is an amazing horror-drama with a subpar plot twist that left me feeling cheated, but still I felt like watching something fresh and chilling. It wasn't the case with The Conjuring and I just can't see what everyone sees in it. I was right about it all along.