The Conjuring
Let me make one thing perfectly clear:
The trailers, posters and publicity for this movie contained phrases such as “sensationally terrifying”
..I felt more scared watching the ‘Tornado’ episode of Desperate Housewives.
‘The Conjuring’ is based on true events.
Therefore, I can only assume that out of respect to the actual family it happened to, the director toned it down and kept out any proper scary scenes.
The movie contains plenty of ‘grit your teeth’ suspense moments as you wonder what will jump out of the silence at you.
There are also plenty of ‘bang’ & ‘smash’ moments – but its was rather disappointing that the biggest thing to actually make me jump, was when a photo falls off the family’s wall.
Hmm.
This is a movie centred more around the story of the family, and less about the scare factor.
Therefore, many of the supernatural events are rather tame and if you’re expecting big frights.. you may leave the cinema feeling a tad deflated.
One annoying element is ‘The Doll’
The scary-faced female piece of porcelain, who is displayed on the posters for this movie – is hardly even in it.
She appears at the beginning as a topic of discussion – then disappears until near the end of the flick, when guess what – her head turns round to look at someone, briefly.
And without spoiling the ending for you, I shall simply say:
“cheesy” – something happens to the mother, and the Warren’s way of trying to cure her is nothing short of ‘quick & simple’
It made me think:
“really!? All that shit going on, and nothing you done so far has helped – yet all you had to do was THIS!?”
I very much want to tell you that ‘The Conjuring’ is a fresh, jump-out-of-your-seat adrenaline rush of frights.
But it is not.
Oh, you get your fair share of “whoa” moments, but thats about it I’m afraid.
I found Insidious, Sinister, those kinds of jumpy films much better.
Perhaps this one is not overly scary because they were trying to portray a genuine family’s experience.
You can’t make it overly scary / add any fright elements out of respect for the family I suppose.
I saw this with a friend of mine, and even she rated it 5 out of 10.
Go see it if you want people, but don’t expect to be screaming.
3/10
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