The Conjuring

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Year:	2013
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	James Wan
Genre:	'True life' chiller
Starring:	Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor, Ron Livingston
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1457767/
Tagline:	No tagline
Favourite line:	"You have a lot of spirits in here, but there is one I'm most worried about because it is so hateful."

A commercial smash in The States - so much so the sequel was green-lit after the opening weekend alone - this can't be as scary as our transatlantic cousins would have us believe, can it?
Well, no, of course not.

The plot:
It's 1971, and a regular family of seven(!), two parents, five daughters, move into their new home, a property in desperate need of some genuine TLC. Having fallen into disrepair, the Perron family bought the house on the cheap, assuming that it was the dishevelled nature of the property that explained the low price.
Wrong!
Soon after moving in, the family find themselves beset by menacing incident after sinister situation, and soon Mrs. Perron turns to famed paranormal husband and wife team The Warrens for help.
Arriving in the house, Mrs. Warren (the magnificent Vera Farmiga) instantly senses something is wrong, and sees demons wherever she goes.
With the arrival of the investigators, the presence in the house escalates its activities and, before you can cry 'Let the power of Christ compel thee' they're all knee deep in exorcism mayhem......

It's hard to understand why this has become the genuine sensation that it has in America.
Listen, its a good film.
It's spooky.
It's very well acted - Farmiga and Wilson are always eminently watchable, and are ably supported by Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston as The Perrons. Heck, even the child actors are totally acceptable - but it is just another creepy house tale.
Director James Wan, fresh off the success of 2010's Insidious, obviously decided to retread similar ground, and I'm sure he's glad he did, as this must be lining his pockets quite nicely but, crucially, as a viewing spectacle, there is nerry a drop of originiality, here.
It's not even that scary.
Sure, early on, there are a couple of moments that tickle at the base of the spine, but only briefly, and these sensations are quickly forgotten as the demonic activity increases and we head into the territory of the rather silly.
Trouble is, we've been here before with Wan.
Insidious followed the exact same path, only that one, in our opinion, was a scarier offering before the daftness kicked in. And listen, we like Wan. He was, after all, the man behind the camera for the original Saw film and, whilst the impact may have diminished due to the increasingly awful sequels, there is no doubting the success of the first entry in the series. His follow up, Dead Silence, was better still, though it flopped quite badly.
Still, The Conjuring is an effective, well handled, well delivered, well acted spookfest that seems to be working on the masses. Maybe the fact we have watched several hundred horror films diminishes the effect somewhat.
Look, in our opinion, watch this for sure but, if you want to see something scary, go rent last year's Sinister after you're done.
Now that was truly terrifying.