The Conjuring

Inspired by true events, The Conjuring follows paranormal investigators Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) as they agree to assist a family being tormented by malevolent spirits. It’s a well-worn setup that’s employed to watchable yet utterly familiar effect by director James Wan, as the filmmaker, working from a screenplay by Chad and Carey Hayes, has infused The Conjuring with all of the tropes and clichés that one has come to associate with movies of this sort – including a seriously deliberate pace, a small child who can communicate with the entity, and many, many sequences in which characters creep around the darkened house. (This is to say nothing of Wan’s tendency to substitute “boo!” moments for actual scares.) The viewer can’t, as a result, help but wish that Wan and the Hayes had tossed a few curveballs into the predictable narrative, and it goes without saying that the film’s ability to hold one’s interest is due entirely to the strong performances and smattering of effective sequences. (In terms of the latter, there’s a very good scene that unfolds entirely from the perspective of a circa 1970s video camera.) But The Conjuring suffers from a lack of momentum that proves impossible to overlook, with the film’s start-and-stop midsection – ie something spooky occurs and Ed and Lorraine subsequently investigate – preventing the viewer from wholeheartedly connecting to the material. And although the film picks up tremendously with its gleefully over-the-top finale, The Conjuring has long-since established itself as a watchable yet underwhelming ghost story that ultimately concludes on a hopelessly anticlimactic note.

**1/2 out of ****