Conjuring up horror

FILM

The Conjuring

MA15+

CAST: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga

DIRECTOR: James Wan

During the past decade, the horror genre has been possessed by the cinematic equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition, gore-engorged geeks who like nothing better than to tighten the thumbscrews and hear audiences scream.

So it’s ironic that the film being hailed as reviving old-style horror, the haunted house hit The Conjuring, has been directed by the man most strongly linked to the so-called “torture-porn” genre, Perth-raised James Wan.

This time Wan, who has himself repudiated the Saw-inspired outbreak of sadism, cranks up the creepiness with traditional techniques such as spooky noises, characters walking down darkened corridors and sudden jolts.

While The Conjuring is not nearly in the same league as the films it emulates, such as The Exorcist and Poltergeist, it’s a relief to find a filmmaker who realises that the horrors we conjure in our imagination are far worse than ones spewed into our laps.

While Wan delivers the expected late-movie shocks, the film falls far short of The Exorcist, the gold standard of the possession flick, because we don’t get enough insight into either the family, who have sunk everything they own into the ramshackle home, or the demonologists, whose troubled past is alluded to but never developed.

The Conjuring is all about the surface shocks and has little psychological resonance.

Therefore it will not haunt our dreams in the manner of arguably the greatest of all haunted house movies, The Shining.

The Conjuring is a fun ride because it evokes movies of yore without reverting to sadism.