Film Review: The Conjuring

I watched two "horror" movies this past weekend.  Neither inspired much horror but one was
significantly better than the other.

The Conjuring was decidedly the worse of the two.  Given the $300MM+ the movie made in box office revenue and the general media and personal reviews surrounding it I anticipated something smart and genuinely creepy.

Instead what we got was a complete retread of all the well known "ghost" and "possession" films with terrible acting and a terrible story.

Oooo...fog.  Ohhhhh, creaking floors.  Wow a possessed doll.  Demon possessed people barfing and levitating--that's new right?!?!  I'm not even sure what the filmmakers THOUGHT might be new here as its ALL been done before and been done better (Exorcist, Omen, Poltergeist,

Oh, did I mention the film is set in the 70s so that it has that terrible "we're trying to make it look like an old film" theme??  Yeah, we have the bad clothes and bad hair and old cameras and technology.  Maybe that is supposed to make it creepier as it, in theory, transports the viewer back to an older time, distancing them from the current when one knows there is no such thing as ghosts or possession.  But it doesn't work.

I kept looking at Vera Farmiga thinking...you went from The Departed and Scorsese to THIS??  And you've signed on for a sequel??

James Wan, the director is well known now for churning out dumb horror retreads and "torture porn" films like the original Saw.  As long as he keeps making money off of someone else's ideas and weak stories I guess he'll keep right on going with the dumbing down of moviegoers but count me out.

There was truly not a single moment when I wasn't rolling my eyes at the stupidity of the characters and the cliche, tired issues that these poor people encounter.  A mystery basement!  Flying furniture!  Prior murders!  Loud noises!  Creepy closets!

Ugh...stay away!!

Not the ghosts....just stay away from this disaster of a film...