Review of The Conjuring (2013) by Jamey H — 29 Sep 2017

The Conjuring is based on the 'real' story of Ed and Lorraine Warren, a pair of paranormal investigators who are called to a house by a family who were being terrorised by a dark presence. This is a pretty typical ghost/demon movie with hauntings and possession, there's nothing you haven't seen before in this film and nothing about the plot or the characters are new.

However, James Wan does have a knack for creating a tense, creepy atmosphere and the scares are quite well done when focussing on smaller, more insidious scares like creaking doors and eerie sounds. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson also give good performances as The Warrens and the film is certainly engaging and entertaining throughout.

However, my biggest issue with this film is it's reliance on cheap jump scares, every few minutes there's a loud noise telling the audience to be scared rather than being genuinely scary and it gets old quickly, almost to the point of fatigue.

Overall, although better than a lot of the dross in the horror movie genre, this movie is pretty forgettable and more likely to make you jump than actually scare you.