12 years after the tragic death of their little girl, a dollmaker and his wife welcome a nun and several girls from a shuttered orphanage into their home, where they soon become the target of the dollmaker's possessed creation, Annabelle.
In the summer of 1989, a group of bullied kids band together to destroy a shapeshifting monster, which disguises itself as a clown and preys on the children of Derry, their small Maine town.
Director:
Andy Muschietti
Stars:
Bill Skarsgård,
Jaeden Lieberher,
Finn Wolfhard
Washed-up true-crime writer Ellison Oswalt finds a box of super 8 home movies that suggest the murder he is currently researching is the work of a serial killer whose work dates back to the 1960s.
A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.
Director:
Jordan Peele
Stars:
Daniel Kaluuya,
Allison Williams,
Bradley Whitford
Three girls are kidnapped by a man with a diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. They must try to escape before the apparent emergence of a frightful new 24th.
Director:
M. Night Shyamalan
Stars:
James McAvoy,
Anya Taylor-Joy,
Haley Lu Richardson
A prequel set before the haunting of the Lambert family that reveals how gifted psychic Elise Rainier reluctantly agrees to use her ability to contact the dead in order to help a teenage girl who has been targeted by a dangerous supernatural entity.
A widowed mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.
Parapsychologist Dr. Elise Rainier faces her most fearsome and personal haunting yet, as she is drawn back to her ghostly childhood home, where the terror began.
In 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron move their family into a dilapidated Rhode Island farm house and soon strange things start happening around it with escalating nightmarish terror. In desperation, Carolyn contacts the noted paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to examine the house. What the Warrens discover is a whole area steeped in a satanic haunting that is now targeting the Perron family wherever they go. To stop this evil, the Warrens will have to call upon all their skills and spiritual strength to defeat this spectral menace at its source that threatens to destroy everyone involved.Written by
Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
The Warrens also investigated The Amityville Horror case. See more »
Goofs
The title card over the establishing shot mistakenly reads "The Warren's Home." It should read Warrens'. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Debbie:
It scares us just thinking about it. When you hear it, you're gonna think we're insane.
Ed Warren:
Try us. Please, from the start.
See more »
Crazy Credits
When the names "Shannon Kook", "John Brotherton", "Sterling Jerins" appear in the end credits, a white cross on the grave turns upside down. See more »
I got a chance to see this movie at the film festival, and boy was I TERRifically surprised! James Wan's 'The Conjuring' is one of those rare gems in the horror industry that finds a spot beside the classic titles of horror, 'The Shining', 'Poltergeist', and 'The Exorcist' due to James Wan's ability to balance an atmospheric dreadful tale involving wonderfully crafted characters with a haunted house that had my palms sweating and my heart pounding during some of the most horrifying moments (There are a few of those; make sure you empty your bladder BEFORE entering the theater).
The things that make 'The Shining', 'Poltergeist', and 'The Exorcist' good is that if the editor were to chop out all the jump-scares and those sequences that fry an image into your brain, you would still have a moody, edgy story that makes you sympathies for the characters and their struggle. This is what Wan does right in this film, and it's then that you realize horror is more than what pops out at you, or what makes you scream. Rather, it's that feeling of dread you get that escalates into sheer terror and suspense, aided by shocking scares.
BUT WAIT! All this not to say 'The Conjuring' doesn't have its share of frightening visuals and pee-your-pants moments; believe me when I say I also rank this as one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. Yet, Wan realizes here that jump scares aren't what moves a story along, but what defines that classic image everyone gets in their head when someone talks about a certain horror movie that frightened them the most, kind of like a celebrity's autograph in the corner of a huge poster of their face.
All of this hence to say, "The Conjuring" is an exceptional piece of film that pulls all the right stops to frighten the audience, leaving a lasting impression on your mind as well the recently tired genre of horror.
Movie Score: 10/10!
287 of 438 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you?
| Report this
I got a chance to see this movie at the film festival, and boy was I TERRifically surprised! James Wan's 'The Conjuring' is one of those rare gems in the horror industry that finds a spot beside the classic titles of horror, 'The Shining', 'Poltergeist', and 'The Exorcist' due to James Wan's ability to balance an atmospheric dreadful tale involving wonderfully crafted characters with a haunted house that had my palms sweating and my heart pounding during some of the most horrifying moments (There are a few of those; make sure you empty your bladder BEFORE entering the theater).
The things that make 'The Shining', 'Poltergeist', and 'The Exorcist' good is that if the editor were to chop out all the jump-scares and those sequences that fry an image into your brain, you would still have a moody, edgy story that makes you sympathies for the characters and their struggle. This is what Wan does right in this film, and it's then that you realize horror is more than what pops out at you, or what makes you scream. Rather, it's that feeling of dread you get that escalates into sheer terror and suspense, aided by shocking scares.
BUT WAIT! All this not to say 'The Conjuring' doesn't have its share of frightening visuals and pee-your-pants moments; believe me when I say I also rank this as one of the scariest movies I've ever seen. Yet, Wan realizes here that jump scares aren't what moves a story along, but what defines that classic image everyone gets in their head when someone talks about a certain horror movie that frightened them the most, kind of like a celebrity's autograph in the corner of a huge poster of their face.
All of this hence to say, "The Conjuring" is an exceptional piece of film that pulls all the right stops to frighten the audience, leaving a lasting impression on your mind as well the recently tired genre of horror.
Movie Score: 10/10!