The Conjuring

The Conjuring delivers a good old-fashioned ghost story with the added bonus of being based on true events. Paranormal investigator and "demonologist" Ed Warren, who investigated the Amityville Horror and many other celebrated and controversial "hauntings" with his wife Lorraine, felt there was a film to be made from their 1971 case involving the Perron family farmhouse in Rhode Island. It took over 30 years for producer Tony DeRosa-Grund to get that film made, but he, director James Wan, and writers Chad and Carey Hayes craft a solid, spine-chilling haunted house thriller from the story. While not a great horror movie like The Exorcist or Poltergeist, The Conjuring effectively uses many of the tropes and story elements that make those two movies so memorably creepy.

Ghost stories in the more innocent, less technological 1970s are usually scarier than their savvier, self-referential contemporary counterparts, and this is no exception. The Conjuring utilises its period detail effectively without overdoing the art direction and costumes. It's always fun to see ghost hunters using analogue audio recording equipment, photochemical still photography, and other imprecise tools that can enhance one's belief in something mysterious far more than it can confirm or deny its existence.

A few anachronistic sensibilities and dialogue keep us from entirely falling under the film's spell, and Wan shows us a few too many overt ghost images when sounds and visual impressions would be scarier. But wow, when this movie uses sound to scare, it's really REALLY effective. The women heading up the cast, Lili Taylor, Vera Farmiga, and the five girls who play the Perron daughters, make their characters far more absorbing than the male leads, Patrick Wilson and Ron Livingston, who both come off a bit flat. Still, I love the marital dynamic between the Warrens—had no idea that Lorraine Warren has a cameo as one of the women in the audience to whom the fictional Warrens give one of their lectures. This is a welcome addition to the haunted house genre and a good scary night out at the movies (or at home).