Review #146: The Conjuring (2013)

This review was originally written in 2021.

I remember seeing this movie back in 2013, when it first came out. I always think of The Conjuring as being at the forefront of a "new wave" or "new era" of horror films- but in retrospect it might just be because it spawned like six thousand sequels (plus or minus the Insidious series, which I find hard to extricate, what with Patrick Wilson being in the lead). This movie definitely does something interesting by having it revolve around what is (ostensibly) a real case with real people, but this does serve to undercut some of the tension when the lead characters are seemingly put in danger. (Like, Ed and Lorraine Warren are real people, who did real things. I know neither of them got killed by a ghost, especially not in the 1970s.)

But this movie ticks a lot of boxes for me. I love me a good haunted house, I love when something that's so nebulous and unproven as a haunting is spoken about like it has rules and structure and specific ways to counter it, and I love all of the fake-out endings in this movie (that is, the points where you breathe a sigh of relief, wipe off your forehead, and say, "Whew, that sure was a tough one" and then expect it to be all over... BUT IT'S JUST GETTING STARTED). I also love how everyone is so genuine in this story- I feel like later entries have a lot more skeptics, even the Warrens doubting that it's a real haunting for most of the movie (meanwhile I'm sitting in the audience, knowing that they're going to come around eventually... just get to it already). Everyone's on board, even Ron Livingston's character, right from the get-go and that leaves more time to deal with the ghosts or whatever and less hemming and hawing.

Considering how I remembered this so fondly from when I first watched it, I was surprised how reliant it is on jump scares. Don't get me wrong, a good jump scare is a good jump scare, but even by the time this one came out it was already pretty easy for the average moviegoer to see a jump scare coming a mile away. But I also feel like the later movies did this even worse, so I guess I'll take what I can get.

All in all this was a very spooky movie, with lots of meat to bite into, and all of the performers did a great job. Not the best movie I've ever seen, but definitely worth watching.

Overall Rating: 8/10 Floors Lorraine Fell Through Without Any Injuries

Scariest Moment: The "Hide and Clap" scene was the one that got me the most!