Review: The Conjuring (2013, dir. James Wan)

James Wan has to be the most hit and miss director of horror cinema I’ve seen for a while. Maybe Ti West has taken his place, but James continues to make movies I either hate or love. Until The Conjuring, which I’m fairly indifferent toward.

            Sure, it’s one of those movies everybody tells you scared the pants off them when they went to see it, and so my hopes were maybe a little high. When I actually sat down to watch it, I felt myself making comparisons to (you guessed it) The Amityville Horror. Ed and Lorraine Warren were real paranormal investigators in the 70s, and this movie is based on real events.

Patrick Wilson and some dead feet.

            The movie follows Roger (Ron Livingston) and Carolyn (Lili Taylor), and their what seems like 20 daughters (I think it’s actually five, but there seems to be a never ending supply), who move to a house in Rhode Island and find that they’re being haunted. They bring in Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Loraine (Vera Farmiga) to help them get rid of the presence in their house. A lot of the things that happen in the house are almost the same as in Amityville, and from there on, I was just kind of bored.

            It’s all jump scares and possession sequences, and the big creepy house isn’t used as efficiently as it could have been as a terrifying setting. There’s a witch’s curse and and exorcisms and a mothers love coming to save the day, but again, it’s really nothing too special. It will definitely make you jump a few times, and for good reason, but Wan seems to have calmed down a lot since Saw and doesn’t stray from the typical formula. It’s a decent enough movie, and it’s pretty damn enjoyable but it should be seen as what it is- just another movie.

 

5/10