Review by Dustin Hall
The Conjuring could be called ‘traditional’ horror, or maybe even ‘by the numbers’. Yet, I wouldn’t call it boring by any stretch. If you’ve seen any ghost story of the past decade or three, you’re familiar with this build-up. A family moves into an old secluded farmhouse which, being set in the 70’s, is secluded and quiet, out on the fringes of society. The dog refuses to enter the premises and mysteriously, almost instantly, dies. The doors open on their own. The clocks all stop at the same time every night. Kids get imaginary friends. Sometimes they sleepwalk. Cue creepy music, Exorcist-font title, a little type-face ‘Based on a True Story’ blurb, and there ya have it, every ghost movie set up since cinema-immemorial.
Tropes aside, The Conjuring is pretty enjoyable.
What sets this movie apart from the others, love ’em or hate ’em, is The Warrens. The controversial pair of self-proclaimed ‘Demonologists’ have been traveling the country for decades (or, well, they had been. Ed Warren passed in 2006 and presumably still travels with his wife to lectures), making a living off of the retelling of their cases. Conveniently, most of the subjects of their cases have also managed to make a killing off of wonderfully written recounting of their haunting and the movie rights. Personally, do I believe any of the Warren’s cases? Absolutely not (and believe me, I’d like to). Healthy skepticism aside, their beliefs and cases rely upon a devout belief in Christianity and a war against Satan and his Demons that just doesn’t jive with my own belief set. However, for some that works just fine, and if nothing else one can’t help but be interested in some of the cool cases they’ve written up. They make for some damn fine stories, Amityville Horror being the most famous. Ultimately, though, this script, which languished for years in development Hell until it was re-written with the Warrens as the main characters, really benefited from the change of perspective, and managed to deliver a fresh take on the haunting tale, one that followed the medium more than the victims.
The result is a solid, if unremarkable, haunting movie that manages to deliver classic ghost images while avoiding some of the typical cheap scares of haunting movies. Its a happy surprise to find a movie that relies more on suspense and creepy vibes over jump scares. In fact, there are very few ‘strange noise turns out to be a cat that jumps out from off-screen’ kind of crap moments here. Rather, we just have some good ol’ timey bump in the night moments backed by solid visuals, and good uses of the house’s creepy, rustic look.
If anything, two complaints. First off, this claims to be the ‘most intense case the Warrens ever worked on’, but for it being so intense, the movie lacks any real visceral moments. Amityville comes off as a more hard core haunting, if you were to compare cinematic interpretations. The harder-edge in the movie version comes from the threat to the Warrens’ own household by the vengeful ghost, if anything. But many details of the ‘real’ case are left out of the movie. Not mentioned is the fact that the Warrens claim to have failed in their cleansing of the house, only making the ghost more angry, or the fact that the haunting lasted for about 10 years.
There are many great haunting accounts from the family’s telling of the story that just didn’t make it in. Rather, the filmmakers stick to more conventional movie haunting moments. The second complaint is a slight lack of internal mythological consistency. At the beginning of the film, Ed gives a series of signs to look for to recognize when a haunting is being perpetuated by a demon rather than a ghost. Through the movie, we’re given some hints that a Demon, or non-human entity is behind the whole thing, but at the end, nope, its just a regular human ghost. Odd.
Looking past these moments though, The Conjuring delivers a familiar story that will still manage to give ghost lovers a few thrills. While it lacks the personal terror of something like Lovely Molly, or the intrigue of paranormal investigator movies like The Legend of Hell House, there’s always a general horror audience out there, and a trove of young, movie-going ghost-virgins out there that’ll just be wrecked by this. It appeals to the yokel in all of us that looks for faces in the window reflections of old buildings, wonders if human-like dolls move around after we sleep, and attributes simple acts of chance to angels and demons. And if nothing else, it makes for a nice companion piece while you go dig up the actual case files of the Warrens and come to your own conclusions.