Review

Ed and Lorraine Warren are brought in to help out a couple of Nurses who are being haunted by a diabolically awful looking doll. Naturally the Nurses are freaking out but Ed helpfully points out the "Annabelle" doll is a conduct for a demonic force and not the ghost the Nurses thought it was haunted by. Having ensured the Nurses are well and truly traumatised Ed takes possession of the doll and locks it up in a spare bedroom at his house fill of other supernatural items. Seems the Warrens are the custodians of all that is evil in the world, but defend themselves via getting the room exorcised once a month and apparently not bothering to lock it. So sort of a spiritual spring cleaning by the Catholic Clergy, available any given Sunday, just ask.

Meanwhile the Perrons, Mom and Dad and an indeterminate number of daughters, have moved into a dilapidated farmhouse in the backwoods of Rhode Island. Not surprisingly clocks are stopping at 3:07 am, there's a boarded up cellar, the dog refuses to enter the house, bad smells are infesting bedrooms, and there's strange noises at night. Things escalate and the Perrons find themselves needing the services of the Warrens as a supernatural force terrorises the family. Ed and Lorraine spring into action and all hell breaks loose as the story the world wasn't ready for is finally revealed. The Perrons have the clap and the Warrens are the solution, a very solid haunted house flick ensues.

As opposed to a whole bunch of places I am neither going to brush off the movie's "based on real events" strategy or slavishly claim it's real based on the say so of the Warrens or Andrea Perron, who has a trilogy of books on the haunting. Both groups had a fiscal investment in people believing the fabrication and hence at the very least you need to take what they say with a grain of salt. In fact I'm just going to say it, while the movie is a well crafted haunted house story it remains a work of fiction, anyone gullible enough to believe what is displayed as having gone down in that Rhode Island house need to check out the Harbour Bridge I have for sale! Fair dinkum folks, some people will believe anything they read on the net or claimed by people with zero in the way of tangible proof. which explains those Nigerian scams that the rural rubes keep being fooled by. Like the belief in instant riches through zero work, the supernatural remains stubbornly unproven. Given the fact that every North American seems to be now carrying a camera of some description or other 24/7 wouldn't you think some sort of proof of the supernatural would have been obtained by now? Like the Amityville haunting, there simply is no proof just the word of people with a vested interest.

Let's drive a stake through the heart of the bad aspects of this flick before grooving out to the real good stuff. James Wan has a number of horror flicks to his credit now so the honeymoon is over; time to seriously view his movies. Firstly anyone who has seen a handful of horror movies, Drag Me to Hell immediately came to mind, will recognise a whole bunch of scenes from this movie as having been done before. There's very little new material being conjured here, the movie works like a greatest hits of haunted house filmdom to be honest. I was picking up a Paranormal Activity vibe, even a dash of Mama, and raising more than a few eyebrows similarities to The Amityville Horror. Seems demonic tenants like to stop clocks just after 3am and are evoked via the old border up cellar thing. If you are going to claim things are based on real events then maybe it might be slightly befitting that you don't repeat the scenes from previous movies. Also not working for me was a whole bunch of events that are simply not explained in the movie or which are introduced and then dropped due to the film makers either having forgotten about them or building up some sort of anticipation for the sequel. Don't even get me started on the logic on display here; James Wan simply doesn't bother himself overly with it.

Seat of your pants tension till you start to analysis it, then the cracks appear in the otherwise spooky veneer

On the bright side of the tree branch we do get a flick laced with atmosphere, tension, and some damn fine jump scenes. I normally view jump scenes as the lowest possible scare tactic available in horror's arsenal but James Wan nails them, I must admit to my bum leaving my seat at a rapid rate a few times. Wan here relies on simple scare scenes, banging doors, noises in the night, and remarkably dispenses with CGI for a lot of the movie's running time. Wan knows how to make a scary movie and The Conjuring for mine is his best movie to date, though with the proviso that you aren't seeing anything you haven't seen before.

Wan and Writer Hayes have a bit of a bet each way on this movie. Besides a haunted house tale, and the reason for the haunting is carefully explained cause it's based on real events and stuff, we also have a possession movie where the Catholics are called in to do an exorcism but don't arrive in time hence Ed Warren has to do the business. Say what! Snake oil by any other name folks, I didn't believe for a minute the Warrens were some sort of supernatural super heroes, must admit to being taken out of the movie by what should have been a very solid scene. Don't get me started on the resolution, no doubt plays well to American audiences wanting happy ending and bunnies dancing in meadows, but I'm not Julie Andrews over here and the hills aren't full of music.

Seems thinking about this movie I'm finding additional problems I wasn't aware of while I was clutching my frozen coke and was all concerned for various characters. Surprisingly I didn't really given a toss about the Perrons or Warrens but I had grave concerns for the survival prospects of Drew as he searched for one of the daughters hiding in the house late in the movie. Actually once again the action orientated Warrens save the day there as well, what the flock!

Man am I finding issues with this movie that I was unaware of previously to collecting my thoughts. At least the 1970s feeling to the movie was working like a brought one. Wan shoots like he has gone back to that decade to make the movie and everything has an authentic vibe to it. James Wan might be making a sham here but he is dedicated to nailing the period the movie is set in and the whole look and feel as things go down.

I'm going to wrap this one as I get the feeling too much more thought on what I saw will involve additional issues that weren't apparent while I was checking out Rhode Island farmhouses. What I got was a decent enough haunted house yarn that dripped with tension and had the whole oppressive atmosphere going down, as such I would recommend this one to most horror fans and the occasion horror viewer. What I didn't get was anything like "real events", no recommendation on this shilling of the rubes by the Warrens or Perrons, James Wan should be ashamed of himself for being involved in a project that is going to fool some folk into believing. Horribly The Conjuring could well be the best horror flick of 2013, which is actually something of an indictment on the state of the genre currently.