The two main problems with horror films are that, firstly, 'your mileage may vary', as they say: basically, what one person finds frightening may make another roll their eyes or simply laugh. Secondly, there are so many cliches associated with the genre that a horror film can end up simply being a jumble bag of them - each cliche decreasingly scary as it is wheeled out again and again.
Going in to 'The Conjuring', I was very wary of these facts, indeed I actually was expecting a tick box checklist of Horror Movie cliches.
Family moves in to slightly run-down, creepy looking house in isolated location? Check.
Someone investigates a noise at night ends up going in to a dark, creepy basement without lights, on their own? Check.
People being dragged off beds by invisible forces? Check (sorta...).
However, I must say I was surprised not only how good 'The Conjuring' was, but by how much it succeeded in giving me chills, giving me at least one good jump scare, and above all, how enjoyable it was.
The set-up is familiar, and yes the way some of the scares are set up are also familiar, at times. But director James Wan (half of the pair which brought us the very first - and by far the best - 'Saw') expertly milks these situations for all they are worth, getting every ounce of tension and fear from them. While the performances aren't exactly outstanding, they are solid and do the job of selling the fear and tension of the situation.
Whereas some horror wants to disturb you, or sicken you to your core with horrific imagery, I'd say that this film is more like a great amusement park ride - it'll give you thrills and chills at all the right places. That's not meant to trivialise or denigrate the efforts of the cast and film makers - in fact, I'd go so far as to say that it does such a good job that any haunted house/possession-based movie that follows it is really going to have to work hard to even match it. This film stamps its authority over this particular sub-genre with panache; when we discover that this particular 'haunting' is not simply confined to one house, but covers many houses over several acres of land, which it turns out were cursed by a witch, it's as though this film is laying down a challenge to other movies of the sub-genre:
"So, you're a Haunted House movie are you? Well, F*ck You, I'm a SEVERAL HAUNTED ZIP-CODES movie!!!"
There's also a neat subversion of the found-footage genre at one point - quite timely given the recent domination of the genre by this type of film.
It's not entirely perfect - a couple of the characters are pretty thinly set out, and suggestions of an attraction between one of the investigating team and the oldest of the family's daughters don't really go anywhere.
Ultimately though, this is a horror film which is a thrilling, fun experience - and after the domination of torture porn posing as horror, and rote found-footage movies, this is most welcome. If it doesn't quite leave you with ptsd, you'll be guaranteed goosebumps aplenty - and maybe even a solid jump scare or two (there was one that got me, nearly pulling my wife's arm out of her socket in the process!)
And if nothing else, this film proves definitively that dolls are really freakin' creepy, and should not be owned by anyone. If you don't believe me, just go talk to Isabelle...
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