Unfortunately THE CONJURING is another let down. This is a haunted house film, a supposed "true story" about real-life self-proclaimed demonologists (is there any other kind?) Ed and Lorraine Warren, the same couple who investigated the "true" Amityville thing. As a result, the movie is more than a little reminiscent of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR, which has its moments but ultimately is annoying as well.
Why, you ask? Because all haunted house movies are annoying. Well, most are, anyway. They all fall prey to the whole "let's make this seem real" school of horror filmmaking, where the filmmakers have the family in their movie scared of stuff that could plausibly happen in a real house (creaking floor boards, cold spots, catching glimpses of things out of the corner of your eye in the dark, etc). Now, in real life, these are the only things "super natural" that there are to be afraid of, because you'll never find a real ghost. So, if you think your house is haunted, all you have to go on is doors that slam shut and shit like that. But this is a movie, folks. In movies where ghosts and demons exist, anything can happen! Let's see some shit!
We do see some shit, but by the time we see it it's too late and there's too much screaming and loud noises and blah. Fuck haunted houses.
Everything that's wrong with this movie can be summed up in an early seen in each Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) visit a couple young women who believe they've got a possessed doll. Two things are obnoxious about this.
Firstly: the doll has been so thoroughly production-designed to look like a devil doll that all suspension of disbelief goes out the window. You don't for a second believe anyone in their right mind would want to own this doll or keep it around the house. It looks possessed. If you're a production designer on a movie like this, your job is to make the doll have plausible deniability. You want it to be creepy (as some dolls are) but believably doll-like, as if someone would actually produce such a doll and successfully sell it. So you have to find that uncanny valley where the doll looks almost normal... BUT NOT QUITE! You don't want it to just look like the possessed chick from the Exorcist.
Secondly: if you want me to buy that the doll is possessed, or that Ed and Lorraine are super experienced awesome demonologists, you have to give me some good evidence. This is literally what happens: the girls say the doll mysteriously ends up in parts of the house where they didn't put it, and then one day they come home and their house has been trashed. So, obviously, the doll is possessed. I mean what other explanation could there be? No one ever misplaces anything, do they? And break-ins never happen, either, right? So, devil doll is the only explanation.
Now, if I'm some expert paranormal investigator and someone tells me this story the first thing I'd say is, "How do you know someone didn't just break into your house and trash the place?"
But not Ed and Lorraine! They just go, "Oh, it's not possessed. It's a demon."
Sigh.
So, why's everyone like this flick, you ask? I can only guess, and here's my guess: unlike many contemporary horror films, this one at least attempts to look like what people might recognize as a movie. It's a 70s period piece, and therefore the aesthetic and filmmaking techniques remind us of a golden era when THE EXORCIST and ALIEN and shit like that were the norm. So, that's nice.
Also, I like the cast a lot. Aside from the great Farmiga and the perfectly fine Wilson, we also get the awesome Ron Livingston and glorious (and underused) Lili Taylor as the parents of the haunted family in question.
So, the movie looks good, and has the vibe of a good movie, and has a good cast, so points for trying, but c'mon with the haunted houses already.
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