Enough Creepy Moments to Make Up for Final Part

Rating: Null/10 (30 July 2013)

The Conjuring (2013)
*** (out of 4)
Real-life ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga) are asked by a mother to come to her home where she, her husband and their five young daughters are experiencing something supernatural. Within minutes of arriving the duo realize that they're up against something stronger than they've ever known. THE CONJURING is a very good movie that certainly deserves a lot of the hype it's getting but I'm going to stop a bit short of calling it a masterpiece or one of the best films of the genre. With that said, there's no question that director James Wan knows how to use torture (SAW) as well as scares (INSIDIOUS) but this time out he goes solely for the scares and gets quite a few very effective jump scenes. Not all of them are those fake jump scenes that are so common in horror movies today where there's a loud crash through the expensive speaker system that would make anyone jump and it doesn't have anything to do with the movie. No, there are generally some creepy scenes here that I'm not going to ruin but you'll certainly never look at hide and clap the same way again. The director also does a very good job with the 1970s setting as the entire film really does look like the movies that would have been made in that decade. The film also benefits from some extremely strong performances with Farmiga turning in another excellent performance. She's really been doing some great work over the past few years and even in a genre that a lot of people look down on. Wilson is also effective as her husband as is Rob Livingston and Lili Taylor as the haunted couple. I think the film eventually falls off its tracks during the final thirty-minutes and once the possession stuff started I just slipped out of the movie. I guess we've simply seen this stuff a bit too often and there just wasn't anything effective during these scenes. Still, the tension and creepiness throughout the first two-thirds of the film are strong enough to make this worth seeing.