The Conjuring is a surprisingly good, tense horror film, better than one might suspect at first glance. While it is a standard "Boo!" film, it is far from typical. More on that in a moment. The story is about a married pair of paranormal researchers in 1971 named Ed and Lorraine Warren. Ed is the only demonologist recognized by the Catholic Church who is not a member of the clergy and Lorraine is a gifted clairvoyant. It is ostensively a true story about their investigation into a series of increasingly dangerous supernatural disturbances plaguing a family in the New Jersey countryside. What starts off as a formulaic Poltergeist movie turns into an increasingly escalating set of events that threaten a very nice family of seven (mom, dad and five girls).
This movie is refreshingly honest in its approach. This is not a comical farce with superficial characters and hackneyed events. The Warrens are not strange kooks and the family is not a stereotypical troubled mess of cardboard cutouts that usually inhabit this type of film. Everyone and everything feels real in this film. The family are is sympathetic and you feel empathy for their plight. The Warrens are deeply religious but not overly sensationalized Bible beaters like Hollywood tends to portray people who are religious. Rather, they are methodical researchers and spiritual warriors. Also atypical for this type of Hollywood film, it takes a stand. It portrays the events as a real conflict between good and evil and that good and evil are real entities, not some banal, philosophical conundrum. The movie ends with a quote from Ed Warren that warns us that good and evil do exist and one must choose a side. There is no neutrality in this struggle and their are only two sides, God and the Devil. We all eventually will have to make a choice between one or the other. While good does triumph here, this film is sending a warning that it can go horribly the other way if one chooses the wrong side. I was a little surprised by this because the film is making a conscious choice, a judgement that is not normally present. And unlike recent films like The Last Exorcism and End of Days, it portrays these choices with real consequences, not just a bunch of scary events that happen to people for no reason.
The film's tone is surprisingly honest as well. Like most good horror films it does not simply rely on cheap thrills for its impact. The film's atmosphere and pacing become more tense and more chaotic as the film progresses, culminating in the good versus evil showdown at the end. Beyond that, however, the film is still what I like to refer to as a "Boo!" film. That is, instead of primarily relying on mood and atmosphere to create an impending and continual sense of dread and unease, it has something jump out and say "Boo!" for its ultimate impact. The movie was punctuated by those boo moments that don't really explain something important to move the story along. They are there simple to startle or shock. By the time we get to the final showdown at the end, complete with spitting blood and levitation, it feels like a copout, like they didn't have anywhere else to go, nothing else to say. Therefore instead, they throw in a noisy struggle. So while this film valiantly reaches for its more superior kin like Se7en, Silence of the Lambs, or The Sixth Sense, it ultimately falls short of the mark. And for me, that is disappointing because the movie is so good otherwise. So, in the end, I would recommend it. It is much better than I expected. It is a lot of fun, very scary at times, and fairly satisfying for an above average horror film. It is not quite great, but makes a good attempt to be so, and is therefore worth the watch. At the very least, the director has atoned somewhat for that stupid earlier disappointment of his, the torture-porn monstrosity known as Saw.
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