The Conjuring

This is the scary ass, haunted, cursed voodoo movie that you thought you were going to see when you heard news stories and advertisements for "The Blair Witch Project" and "Paranormal Activity", only this one is a bona fide, knock your socks off, scare fest. I was so friggin' scared that I was swearing out loud in the movie theater, something I've never done before.

Here are the facts: I've seen my share of horror movies. I've visited some haunted places. And I went cold in the theater twice. Not got chills; went cold. The only other movies that have done that to me feature closeups of Cameron Diaz's face.

Yeah, sure, I'll admit. There's nothing new here. Haunted houses, witches, possessions, I've seen it all before... But then again, I've seen porn before, and I just. keep. coming. back. for. more. Were we talking about a movie?

Watching "The Conjuring" is almost depressing; on its own merits it is slightly above average, but the fact that 99% of horror that has come out in the past few years is truly bad makes it look like a masterpiece in comparison. It plays out exactly like you would expect a haunted house / exorcism mashup would. But while it does nothing new, it hits almost every beat very well, flawlessly combining atmosphere and jump scares. Just a solid horror throughout.

Really efficient, pulling off many neat scares with technical savvy while adhering strictly to the ground rule probably most fundamental to elevating the genre: that less is always more. Not many horror films of this quality come about in a decade.