[6]

The Conjuring, written by twin brothers Chad and Carey Hayes and directed by James Wan (Dead Silence, Saw), is an old-fashioned haunted house story that morphs into one of demonic possession. After some clunky exposition, the first half of the film is a solid tension-filled spook fest. Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston play parents of four young girls who unwittingly move their family into an old house where some pretty serious shit went down. With the help of husband and wife paranormal investigators (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) and the superfluous involvement of several horror tropes (a nasty doll, a witch, a music box, etc.), you start to figure out what's going on and who's behind it all. Unfortunately, the more you learn, the less interesting the movie gets. By the time Lili Taylor steps into pea soup-spewing territory, the movie's stock starts to plummet.

There’s a fine line between being “old fashioned” and “unoriginal.” I’d say The Conjuring sticks to the side of the former for its first two-thirds. I dug the haunted house stuff, but when the film turns into every other demon possession movie we’ve ever seen, it’s hard not to feel a little disappointed. Still, when The Conjuring works, it works — and it’s a better contemporary horror flick than most.