The Conjuring

Directed and edited for maximum impact, this love-letter to early ’70s haunted house and ghost stories is too good to be true, and its impact is only slightly blunted by it being essentially just the finished version of Wan’s previous film, Insidious, itself only two-thirds of a complete offering. Like Insidious and all those earlier films The Conjuring mostly just studies (I’d love to say re-reads, but that would be unearned here), it emphasizes slow build-up over gore and let’s loose with a filmmaking bag of tricks so deliciously evil it’s hard not to stand up and applaud everything director James Wan does here. Except, we’re too busy being glued to our seat out of pure fear and white-knuckle tension to do anything except try to avert our eyes when we know, like a magnet, Wan is pulling us back. It’s not particularly subversive – there’s something vague going on about the self-destructive cosmic pull of the netherworld on those who peek into it, but it never goes anywhere. As a work of sheer craft, however, it’s almost undeniable.
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