The Conjuring (2013)

So I recently hung out with Blaine again and he had some more movies for me to see. And while I'm not really a horror kind of guy, I decided to bite and allow him to show a movie he has wanted me to see for a long time: The Conjuring.

Plot: Set in 1971, Roger and Carolyn Perron move to an old farmhouse Rhode Island with their five daughters. But after their first night in the house, Carolyn has a strange bruise and their dog Sadie is found dead. A few more mysterious instances occur before they finally decide to get help from paranormal investigators named Ed and Lorraine Warren to find out what is happening and if there needs to be an exorcism.

For what I was getting into despite not really a bit horror fan, I actually ended up enjoying this movie for what it was. I mean yes, the idea of a mysterious house and a family that has just moved to it is nothing new by any means. And to be honest, the reveal of the mystery wasn't anything new either. But for what was happening, they still made it interesting. Despite using a bunch of basically old fashioned scares, they were structured and times well enough that they were still effective. And what especially helps is that the characters themselves are interesting. Granted, not all of them are developed well enough that they stand out, I mean there's only half the the daughters had something particularly distinct about them that I can think of off the top of my head. But even with that said, they were still interesting enough that I was rooting for them and hoping that they were all going to be okay in the end. And they also gave us a lot of focus on the investigators who also have some conflicts going on with their lives that you want to see them come out of which is something new. Well...maybe there is a horror films where characters similar to Ed and Lorraine where there's something like that (I'm just speculating at this point since - again- I'm not that into Horror, leastways not if this particular style for that matter), but even if it has been done before, I don't know that, and they still are likable enough that I want to see them be able to figure things out. I think the only nitpick I can think of for this movie was the lack of focus on the daughters individually. Because again, only about half of them had anything distinct about them, and I think the youngest one was the only one that had enough focus in terms of just medium close-ups or just close-ups to be recognizable by appearance while the rest...just weren't. Granted, the focus is really meant more on the parents and the investigators and they are more interesting, I get that. But I still feel like they could've done a tad more on that. But again, that's a total nitpick and nothing else.

And that's my review for The Conjuring. It may have a familiar kind of story, but they make work with well structured and timed scares, and more importantly, a lot of characters that are likable enough that you do genuinely want to see them pull through from what is happening to them. If you haven't seen this movie and are looking for a few scares, I'd say give this one a shot.

Rating: 85%