The Conjuring

You know that any movie opening with a life-sized doll acting as a conduit for a demon is going to be a scary-ass movie. I didn't know that this film was also based on a supposedly true story until I watched the opening credit sequence. Any one of these films such as the Amityville Horror or A Haunting in Connecticut always tend to stick with me just because they supposedly happened. This film in particular was probably the scariest film I've seen since Paranormal Activity 3 about 1 1/2 years ago. 

The opening  sequence introduces the two paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) showing a video of some of their work to a college class. After the title sequence the movie starts off like 95% of all other horror films, the family moves into the creepy old house that they got a great deal on from the bank because no one else wanted to buy it..... Besides the beginning of the film being filled with endless cliche's, I really enjoyed it for the most part. The acting and cinematography was actually quite good. I wouldn't expect anything less from a film being directed by James Wan. The film also did something that most other horror films don't, it included actors that I actually recognized such as Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor. 

I definitely thought the film lived up to all of the hype over how scary it was. With as many horror films as I've seen it's hard to make me actually freak out when watching a film and it did a pretty good job of that. It didn't include too many unnecessary jump scares and actually used suspense and make up to do the scaring. The film contained a lot of elements seen in other contemporary horror films like the Paranormal Activity franchise such as invisible entities pulling and dragging characters. However, it also did a good job revealing the terrifying face of the entity when necessary.

If you're someone that loves horror or going to see scary movies, this will be right up your ally. If you want to see it but are new to the genre, I would start with some older films on Netflix or from a friends collection until you've worked yourself up a tolerance that these films require. I honestly think that this film is today what The Exorcist was for audiences in 1973.

Film Rating: 9/10