Initially interesting, 'The Conjuring' ends up being fairly run of the mill. It's clearly the first of a series, as it follows the (assumingly) massively hyped adventures of two real life ghost busters.
Some of the shots are surprisingly well done, and the way that the film plays with time towards the start and lets us get to know our investigators before sort of sidling into into the family's drama without having anyone meet too soon is well done. This movie also mashed it's plot into a historical period better than most modern horrors have, that have tried similar things. You can easily tell the date from any scene, without it being unrealistically in your face or cliche.
However, these positives don't stop this movie from being what it is - a mediocre, sometimes tedious, paranormal crap fest. The kind that is churned out in hundreds of variations for cheap unimaginative dates and idiots to attend. I don't think jump scares are all that, but I suppose if I did, I'd say that the ones in this are fine. The atmosphere is actually worked on, and I appriciate this far more, but it still didn't do much for me. Maybe I'm numb, or have been forced to watch too many of these movies, but whatever.
Oh, and I quite liked the family; they were somewhat believable. I even almost liked the girls (an incredible feat for me and kids), but not quite. I also liked the design of the tree: it's pretty Tim Burtony, and reminds me of the tree of the dead from 'Sleepy Hollow'.
A pretty good example of a grossly over done genre, if you're given a choice of dumb ghost movies like this to watch, this is one of the more tollerable ones to choose. Fair movie, bad genre.
The Conjuring: 33.8