The Conjuring (2013)

Conjuring Reviews

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'The Conjuring' movies are one of the most fascinating cases when it comes to movie-viewing as an individual. In truth, I missed almost every film in this franchise upon its initial release. I was hard-pressed to attach myself, because supernatural horror (ghosts, hauntings, demons, possessions and the like) tends to be more of the same, and highly predictable for me. This franchise is no different; however, most of its movies aren't without a good and effective NON-jump scares or two, and that's what makes them good.

We are introduced to the well-known and well-debunked husband-and-wife demonologist duo, Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga). Perhaps most famous for investigating the Amityville haunting, the pair, despite their real-life controversy, have a good selection of cases loosely associated with them that make for good Hollywood horror. This particular story is based on their experience with the Perron family of Harrisville, Rhode Island, and the now-famous "Conjuring" house, which, by the way, looks significantly different in real life from the movie, and I'd say much creepier in person.

As the couple gets introduced, we are further introduced to Annabelle, the possessed doll (who would essentially become the face of this series and go on to have three movies of her very own) and Ed and Lorraine's room of horrors, containing cursed objects of all sorts. We also get hints that the clairvoyant Lorraine suffered some unspeakable trauma during their last case, making it something she'll ultimately have to face up to to solve this "Conjuring" case, which they are eventually called in to investigate.

The case itself takes place in '71, and involves the Perron family: Roger (Ron Livingston) and Carolyn (Lili Taylor), along with their five daughters, Andrea (Shanley Caswell), Nancy (Hayley McFarland), Christine (Joey King), Cindy (Mackenzie Foy), and April (Kyla Deaver), moving into a new house. It's not long before the family encounters a malevolent presence surrounding their new home, tormenting them. When the Warrens get called in to investigate, what they uncover is far more sinister than your average haunting.

If one researches enough about Ed and Lorraine Warren, they will uncover the couple as being total fraudsters. And to those of my readers who don't believe in the paranormal, it's no surprise. However, it's essential to acknowledge this as a movie designed to scare and entertain us, and it's one of the better examples of its kind over the past couple of decades. If the viewer can treat it as pure entertainment, it works out well. It can be a little slow at times, but in some of the darker-lit scenes, the suspense is front and centre, where it should be.

Ed and Lorraine are actually the weaker point of this whole movie. Not that they make for bad characters or anything like that. But they definitely take a back seat to the Perron family and their experiences, which are actually pretty creepy - my personal favourite involves Nancy, Christine, and an entity hiding in the shadows of their room. It makes for a personal favourite horror scene as far as anything after the turn of the century, and Joey King's dramatically scared performance is pretty damned convincing.

Whether or not this story can be proven entirely false, it doesn't detract from the horror aspects in the film that I really appreciate. The suspense here is well executed, the scary mood lighting is on point, the scared performances are convincing, and despite a bit of predictability, it really makes for a solid haunted house flick. It gets into demonic possession as well, as we probably all know by now, but even that didn't feel as cut-and-paste from 'Exorcist' as I initially assumed it might be. Altogether, this is a solid horror flick that, thankfully, doesn't rely on gore and remembers how to get inside people's heads.

4/5

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