One of the finest horror films of the decade

Rating: 9/10 (2 August 2017)

James Wan's "the Conjuring" is a far better horror film than I had expected it to be, but four years ago when it was released into theaters I thought it was about a person being possessed but when you watch it for the first time you will find out that it is so much more than that. The movie is based on the true story of Roger and Carolyn Perron (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) who have five daughters named Andrea (Shanley Caswell), Nancy (Hayley McFarland), Christine (Joey King), Cindy (Mackenzie Foy), and April (Kyla Deaver), who then move into an old Rhode Island farmhouse which is haunted but nobody notices until a few days later when the mother goes to some sort of paranormal activity class and learns about signs of demonic activity which happens to be taught by supernatural activity investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) who then get told about the situation and then decide to take a look at the house for themselves, but after they're hired things would get a lot worse than an ordinary person would be able to comprehend. During the many investigation scenes Lorraine finds out that there was a young woman hung by a tree by her own mother that was possessed by some demonic spirits to kill her which she then finds out will happen eventually but for reasons that I will not reveal, but things get scarier and scarier with really effective jump scares which are written at just the right times, and Wan's direction is very similar to the techniques of Alfred Hitchcock in terms of building up suspense in the movie. The performances especially from Farmiga and Wilson are very good, and mostly everything is totally realistic for a horror film. But at the same time I feel like this movie could have been a lot better despite being a near masterpiece. This is one of the best movies of the decade but not the best horror film that I've ever seen, although it is one of the very best, ranking among greats like "Psycho" (1960), "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), "Carrie" (1976),"Poltergeist" (1982), "The Shining" (1980) and many others. But compared to this movie the other Wan movie that I watched recently which was "Saw" (2004) this movie is nearly twice as better than that one, which is why I would highly recommend it for horror movie fans who haven't seen this movie yet.