Well... at least it has a unique time period...

Rating: 6/10 (28 September 2014)

For months my friends have been telling me that The Conjuring is the modern horror classic. While Insidious was good, this movie was even better. This movie showed how horror movies should be done.
Well... Insidious wasn't bad, it wasn't amazing... and... this same goes with this movie.
The movie starts off with the Annabelle doll case just for to have a cool trailer. Sadly, the movie has nothing to do with the doll that was so heavily advertised. The doll just plays a part for an intro case that explains an example of a paranormal case, as if setting the stage for the rest of the movie. It is confirming "The rest of the movie is going to be this good".
Unfortunately, The Conjuring is probably the least scary horror movie I have seen in quite some time. The intro is by far the creepiest aspect of the film, while the rest of the movie doesn't have any scares. I'm not even joking when I say this, there was not a single moment in this movie that actually took its full potential. There were a lot of moments that could've been scary, but simply ended up without a scare. This is a common trend in horror movies now: Build up a scare that will never happen, so as to confuse the audience. However, even that is becoming predictable, because now you can tell if there is going to be a real scare or not.
The other thing is that when this movie tries to be scary, it actually fails at it mostly because the camera stays running for half a second too long. In one scene a ghost jumps out at the camera shouting "SHE MADE ME DO IT" which could be scary, however the problem is that this happens over the course of a second and a half or so and the girl runs at the camera. This means we get a good look at the ghost moving towards the camera before she becomes threatening. It's the timing that is important in making something scary, and just about every jump scare in this movie is timed incorrectly.
This is interesting because the beginning of the movie seemed to understand what was creepy; however, the majority of the movie doesn't. What's even weirder is that the doll comes back for a scene side- story that never has a complete arc. This is weird because it is as if the movie is hinting at "The doll is the real ultimate evil all along who is behind the scenes and is the "real" scare of this movie" but the doll never has a complete arc. It just exists, sitting in the back of the movie (literally) having its own useless presence.
Now the actual character elements of the movie aren't horrible. The characters have fairly good acting and the some of the characters are likable. However, nobody dies, so what is the threat anyways? The worst thing that can happen is someone gets bumped on the head or knocked out.
The camera angles aren't horrible in this movie, but some of the are pointlessly complex and thrown in randomly for the sake of directing. Though, there were some nice shots by horror movie standards. So that was nice.
All in all The Conjuring isn't a horrible movie, it just isn't a good horror movie. It isn't scary, most of the cast is boring, and nothing in the movie stands out. I feel like I've seen this premise before and I have seen these characters before. The soundtrack isn't bad, but it has improper timing and the same goes with the scares. Timing is key.
Watch it if you want to be bored for a good hour and a half or so.