A formulaic horror movie with no surprises but a tense atmosphere

Rating: 6/10 (3 February 2017)

There have been so many recent horror movies with the same basic premise - 'Sinister', 'Insidious', 'Don't Be Afraid of the Dark', 'The Haunting in Connecticut' - that it's starting to feel a bit worn. There's a normal American family troubled by some familial tensions, they move to an old country house to get a fresh start, but at night the doors and floorboards creak, there are inexplicable phenomenon, the children are scared - there's always a sweet, innocent child - and something seems to be living in the dark with them. Slowly the haunting grows more intense, furniture moves around untouched, maybe their pet dies, maybe the neighbors warn them. They find out that the house has a dark past - someone committed a horrible string of murders there and their ghost hasn't moved on. In the end the family is saved and the experience bonds them closer together.
So if the plot offers nothing new then it's all in the execution. 'The Conjuring' creeps on you quietly: it doesn't have gory corpses or twisted monsters, but relies on atonal strings and dark shadows. The problem is that it uses the same tropes over and over: the creaking door, the shadows in the cellar, the reflection in the mirror. Sure, they work, but they become predictable, and they're cheap tricks when you get to the bottom of things.
I have to admit that several scenes got me to the edge of my seat and made my breathing rapid, notably when the little girl claims to see something in the darkness standing right behind her sister, looking right at them. The movie has a tense atmosphere but when it ends, it doesn't really stay with you or fuel any nightmares. It doesn't have the horrific imagery of stronger horror movies like 'The Shining' or 'Ringu' or even 'It Follows': 'The Conjuring' is all smoke and mirrors.