My feelings on the 2013 box office smasher "The Conjuring"

Rating: 6/10 (22 June 2016)

This modern horror flick was released in 2013 by James Wan. It's mostly just an average ghost movie dealing with supernatural themes that we've seen before. There's nothing wrong with these old school scare tactics, just nothing too original or creative about them either.
The premise of this movie revolves around a family of seven, with five daughters moving into a cursed home. It doesn't take long before creaks are heard throughout the house and doors mysteriously open on their own. Once the mother asks for help from experts of the supernatural, The Warrens further investigation of the house reveals a dark spirit and a cursed land with a bloody history. The supernatural occurrences become more prevalent as the film goes on until the climax around the last twenty minutes of the movie. As far as plot goes, this movie plays it relatively safe by sticking to every genre cliché there is. The family dog senses the evil presence before the humans do prior to being killed off, the youngest daughter bears a friendship with a person that's not there (presumably a ghost), the oldest daughter is grumpy with the parents for even moving houses and the children believe they see things before the parents barge in to tell them it was all a dream. There is also awkwardly forced in 70's slang in one scene as if outdated electrical appliances weren't convincing enough in the film. The acting through these clichés was decent for both the child actors and the adult actors. The adult actors were nothing special but were convincing of the role, the weakest of them being the actor for the father, Ron Livingston. It could have been just a matter of direction or the material he was given, but there was never an opportunity to learn anything about his character other than the fact that he is a father and retains fatherly responsibilities such as rescuing his family members from ghosts. There wasn't anything special he brought to his performance, although the lack of material he was given is also to blame. The child actors were surprisingly not terrible for child actors and were all convincing in the most crucial scenes that could easily have been ruined if they were lazy about their performances. The children did fade back and forth from being credible characters to observably out of character, like cracking a small smile in a serious situation.
The film has its moments and the well-used musical score adds to these moments, but I felt like we needed more of a reason to care about the characters the story centered around, particularly at the end of the movie with the actor for the mother, Lili Taylor. Lili Taylor was fitting as the mother, and the father character could really have been cast as anybody. There aren't any concepts introduced in this movie that are genuinely new or fascinating that I have not seen before. This movie felt very similar to 'Insidious', another title that James Wan directed himself and concerned ghosts and possession. Although cliché and seen before in movies like 'The Exorcist', and 'Child's Play', James Wan is really good at unsettling visuals. The supernatural theme is dealt with in a way that makes it hard to determine whether the visuals are in the dream of a character or are real, and it was interesting to keep seeing. Some of that subtlety is lost by the end of the movie, but the climax is still enjoyable. There are a few jumpscares in this movie, a much- beloved scare tactic in modern horror. These are luckily not overused as ineffective scares. There is some purpose to them, and they were kept to a minimum in the film. The tone of this movie is done well and there is some suspense that I enjoyed. The thing that bogs this film down the most is how safe it stays. It's definitely a better modern horror movie, but it sticks to classic roots of horror. I'm very reluctant to see The 'Saw' franchise on account of how ridiculous it looks, so it is good to see something like this that I hope is a shred more intelligent than nonstop gore and jumpscares thanks to Saw and anything given from Eli Roth.
I would recommend this film, but I can't see much rewatchability. This movie holds up for now against titles like Paranormal activity but doesn't hold up against other horror classics
+ Decent child acting - Often cliché + creepy visuals - Characters don't go anywhere
6/10