A great antidote to your standard dehumanizing horror movie.

Rating: 9/10 (13 January 2019)

James Wan has become a master of the modern horror flick; distancing himself from the torture porn trend he began with Saw, focusing instead on using old-school horror tricks to their best advantage. We may have seen these scare set pieces before (e.g. the possessed doll, the dark cellar, the crows flying into the house) and we know how music manipulates us to create jumps, but Wan pulls these off in such a way that the film feels both fresh and terrifying.
He's achieved that, in part, by paying homage to the type of horror films he loves from the 1970s. Most of the effects in The Conjuring were created practically on set, rather than through a computer, which makes them feel all the more real. The cinematography by Frank Leonetti is simple and beautiful, and together with Wan, has created some creepy images, which may become iconic and possibly will be lampooned by the Wayans brothers at some point.