The Conjuring

Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Lili Taylor
Directed by  James Wan
Rating:

The Conjuring is yet another familiar tale seen many a times before on screen: innocent family moves into a new home only to come face to face with the sinister spirits hidden in its fold. Here it is the Perrons who have a tough time dealing with their farmhouse with a secret basement cellar and weird closets harbouring the menacing. There are clocks that get stuck at 3.07 am, a dog who refuses to enter the house, suici­dal birds which hit the walls and break their necks, mystery bruises on the mother’s body and a shadowy, imaginary friend of one of the kids. Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren step in to help. Is it all to do with something awful that happened in the past? Is there a demonic presence that is trying to attach itself to the fam­ily? Or is there a rational explanation? Things take predictable twists and turns. There are all the regular tropes of the old-fashioned horror films—the weird presences, the curses, the rituals and exorcism. All within the God aga­inst Satan framework of Christian theology that many a Hollywood horror film has derived from. Despite doing nothing new with the genre, Wan succeeds in making things impossibly creepy and relentlessly petrifying. He builds up the tension slowly and then doesn’t allow you to breathe in peace for even a second. A couple of moments have the audience shr­i­e­king in unison. That’s the fun of horror!.