A Very Fun, But Standard Horror Film

Rating: 7/10 (8 September 2014)

Usually horror films that claim are actually based on true events, you try your hardest to suspend any kind of scepticism in hopes that there's some form of truth lurking around. In the realms of the supernatural in horror films, I feel there is no need to spoon-feed our audiences any further than offering the material you have in front of our eyes. Are the situations faced in these stories real? There's a possible chance it may be. Is the story itself accurate? More often, they are not. "The Conjuring" directed by James Wan focuses on a haunted house story and delivers us some powerful, but mundane scares that exceeds above other movies, though the quality is quite lacklustre.
The opening ploy involving a possessed doll paves the way open to our leading heroes, a pair of paranormal investigators Ed and Leslie Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), the story turns its attention to the Perron family lead by Roger and Carolyn (Ron Livingston and Lilli Taylor) who in 1971 move into a condemned farmhouse in Rhode Island with their five daughters and their dog, Sadie. No sooner than they settle in which strange eerie stuff manifests within their surroundings as secret passageways start to unravel and the dog becoming very suspicious, refuses to even come into the house. The hauntings are thrown at them left,right and centre as mysterious bruises appear on their skin, clocks stopping for no reason, doors open by themselves. While these things happen it never feels rushed. Once they had enough, it was time for the Perron's to call the Warren's to investigate the paranormal activities going on in their house.
The Warrens eventually move in with the family to seek out what kind of supernatural occurrences is bothering the Perrons so that can gain permission from the Catholic Church to see if they can possibly perform an exorcism on them. Their research leads up the forces behind these evil intentions comes from a lady named Bathsheba (Joseph Bishara) who in 1863 was claimed to be a witch was caught trying to sacrifice her young child. And the movie just carries along with one thing happening after another either cementing the side story or just simply randomizing one scare after the next until we've reached the climax.
What makes "The Conjuring" compelling was the ensemble. As surreal as the story may be at times, they're all very convincing and the emotions they bring to their audience speaks volumes louder than words. Even the daughters, who are relatively unknowns succeed in delivering emotion range that never seems either forced or contrived. When the performers feel the fear factor, the audience will feel it as well. Therefore, for a horror film I felt the performances were actually pretty good. Not Oscar worthy, but the emotional manipulation really sells itself pretty good. The other factor is the level of scares. Sure it's been done a thousand times before for better or worse, but it is quite solid in its execution. The unsettling camera with its off-kilter angles create a spectrum of uncomfortable images and situations like ghosts materializing in the mirrors, eerie whispers, and doors slamming on their own. It's been done before, but the execution here is chilling and convincing.
However, the scares seem to only work but only in a subtle fashion and it lacks in terms of having a deep impact on its audience. Director James Wan ignores to develop a more impacted thread that can vibrate with the audience once the end credits are finished. It's something that could be taken into consideration. With the myriad of horror remakes and sequels, it's necessary to have a scene like in "The Exorcist" implanted into the story. For a film that tries to go beyond the fear factor of the paranormal, "The Conjuring" fails miserably. The digging for evidence is only depended on mainly for the action and not very much elsewhere. And from what is given to us the Warrens' believe that the Perron's are just another case file. Where do they go after this case has zero concern for us, but some fleshing out could have made this movie a lot better.
In an early scene that situates the Warren's lecturing at university students as they would prefer to be either labelled as ghost hunters or kooks. I think kooks best describes them. Although it feels as though the movie was based or inspired by actual events, but suspending one's disbelief seems to be the direction this movie is going. There's a lot of traditional horror elements that these kooks won't tell.