The Conjuring is a supernatural horror film from 2013. It was directed by James Wan and stars Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor. It was released by Warner Bros. and has a running time of approximately 112 minutes.
This is a new film so there will be NO spoilers in this article.
I am a man of little faith when it comes to modern horror movies. I don’t know what it is about them, but I find myself enjoying no more than 25% of modern horror movies on average. That being said, I went and saw The Purge while it was in theatres. The best part of that experience was seeing the preview for The Conjuring. James Wan directed it so I was a little intrigued since he’s the dude that directed the original Saw (which happens to be the only one I liked). Along with Wan a couple other familiar faces to me in Ron Livingston (Swingers, Office Space) and Lili Taylor (Say Anything…, High Fidelity). This movie had me pretty intrigued, but I had my doubts that it would be good.
The movie centers on the Perron family, Carolyn (Taylor), Roger (Livingston) and their 5 daughters. They move into house only to have things get terribly, terribly weird. After things become too much to bear, they call in paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Wilson and Farmiga) to help them with their problem.
This movie was friggin’ intense. The plot (based on the real life work of the Warrens) had me hooked and the acting was fantastic. Where Wan showed us every gory detail in Saw, he doesn’t show much in The Conjuring. A lot of the chills and tension are from the idea that something is about to happen. I’ve always said that there is nothing scarier than your own imagination, and Wan makes you put yours to use with The Conjuring. There were moments where I didn’t realize that I had stopped breathing because I was so involved in a scene. That almost never happens to me.
The Conjuring genuinely gave me the heebie jeebies. When I returned home after seeing it and had to go to the basement to do some laundry, I had to remind myself that it was just a movie. I can’t tell you how cool it felt having a movie leave that kind of impression on me. The Conjuring was a fantastic piece of horror and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to have the crap scared out of them.
Keep it creepy,
Mike