“Based on a true story” (of course),The Conjuring involves real-life supernatural investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren,
who were involved in the Amityville saga (and were convinced it wasn’t a hoax).
Like 1979’s The Amityville Horror and its many sequels, imitators and progenitors,
Wan’s film sees a family (the Perrons; cry for them) moving into a new old home in which various historical traumas — child murders, witch trials — are manifesting as spooky phenomena.
The Conjuring fills its exhausting run-time with a cauldron of stirred echoes from any number of its similarly-themed predecessors:
a period 1970s setting;
doors that open and close on their own; things under the bed; a dog that won’t enter the house; crawl spaces; a cellar;
a doll; a music box; ghosts; possessions; exorcisms;
secrets uncovered.
Even the bird-strike set-piece has unfortunately already been seen this year,
in the inferior Dark Skies (with which The Conjuring shares composer Joseph Bishara). อ่านต่อ