About 20 or so years ago at the ripe age of 10 my mother took me to see a presentation by Ed and Lorraine Warren, the famous supernatural investigative husband and wife team. They spent about an hour and a half showing us slides of ghost photos, possessed items and playing audio tapes of demons speaking through their possessed hosts. Hearing those voices and seeing the images of a purportedly possessed children's doll was enough to actually frighten that horror film obsessed 10 year old. So as The Conjuring unspooled in front of me on the screen it wasn't long before I was experiencing some major deja-vu.
The Conjuring concerns a family consisting of Carolyn, Roger and their 5 daughters. They purchase an old rundown home only to discover that it is inhabited by a malevolent force. As this force becomes more violent they seek help in the form of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Ed is a renowned demonologist and Lorraine a clairvoyant and they work to rid not only the home but the family members themselves of this entity before it literally tears their family apart.
The Conjuring is an amalgamation of several tropes and plot lines we have seen before. Wan calls on films like The Amityville Horror (also a Warren case), Poltergeist, The Entity, The Exorcist and even his own Insidious for inspiration. Actually, I think there may be a little bit of Evil Dead imagery in here as well. All of these sources could have been a major downfall for the film if it hadn't been well executed. However, rather than feel like a cut and paste money grab experience, all of these elements come together seamlessly into one giant melting pot of a film that works surprisingly well from start to finish.
