The Conjuring is a 2013 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan. Ed and Lorraine Warren were American paranormal investigators who come to the assistance of the Perron family, who are experiencing increasingly disturbing events in their farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island in 1971

WARNING: May contains MAJOR spoiler!

When The Conjuring was out on July, people were talking how scary the film was. My friends and my brother could not get over the film even after a month watching it. Though curious myself I didn't went to watch it. It's not that I got myself spooked, I have my own reason. So when the dvd was out recently I finally got my hand to watch it, and boy am telling ya, The Conjuring is one of the rare films I have 5 out of 5 rating, and I have many good reason why it deserved full 5 stars rating.

It's Diverted from Most Typical Horror Film

For starters, what's usually make a horror film? What's the essential of a horror film? A least in my years of observations, this is what I often finds in horror films:

1) Blood

2) Gore

3) Excessive Conflict with a Group (family, friends, etc,etc,etc)

4) Body of Counts

5) At least one psychopathic human character

6) Malicious Spirits/Ghosts

And not sure with the new generation, profanity is like a must in horror films. Don't ask me why, I'm not sure myself. In The Conjuring you’ll hear none, the worst you can get is "shit", and you’ll hear it only once.

Alas, The Conjuring managed the bring out the horror without the need of all 6, the most it had is ONE malicious spirit and that's all. There was no gore, a very minimal usage of blood (it occurs only twice in the film - and you're most likely even going to forget there was even a presence of blood through the film), there was conflict, but not the kind you always seen in a horror films or any dramas, the was no psychopathic character, and most of all, nobody die during the whole course of the film (saved for the characters that had died PRIOR the film started). Sounds boring? Guess again my dear friend. You'll be surprised how much it's actually way, way scarier than your typical horror films.

The Simplicity of Horror

As I mentioned earlier, there was no blood or gore throughout the course of the film, so what's actually really made The Conjuring scary? It's the fact of the simplicity of horror in the film. Everything was simple, it fact it is actually something that occurs every day in our life. A rolling ball, clapping your hands (in this case is a game of Hide and Clap), and some not-so occurred everyday, but it happened at times, sleepwalking, bruised over body, and things got fallen from the wall.

There you have it, a full list f disturbances occurred on the Perron family before being attacked by the malicious spirit. Sounds simple eh? But how come they ended become one of the main factor of horror? The key of the whole things here is the timing and music. Both timing and music were both well played to intersects each elements in making your daily life activities become something more horrifying. I mean, who thought the sound of rope squeaking can actually get your hair up?

Well The Conjuring managed to. And most of the time you only see the below part of a hanging woman (or an accused witch in this case), there was no blood, no shredded outfit, not gruesome scars over the body. Just a normal looking woman in a dress (or a nightgown, I don't want to argue here), probably a bit pale, and a simple sound of rope squeaking. And that's it, and you just got the whole people in the cinema biting their fingers, praying for the safety of our main character.

The Family Value

When the Perron family were introduced; husband and wife with five lovely daughters, the way they portrayed the family is very significant to make you sympathize them later; everyone seemed to get along very well, the sisters teased and happily playing with each other, then blaming which other when things goes wrong (typical for young siblings), the husband and wife were soon in love with each other and had been very supportive towards one and another. They're your typical, normal but loving family.

So my first thought came, "Owwww we gonna have at least one rebellious daughter". Sure enough there is; the eldest, being grumpy with the fact they had to move away, but the parents being completely understanding of her situation. I admitted, at this point I was deceived, I totally believed that we're going into typical conflict in horror film; the eldest daughter gonna make a fuss, but the mother won't believe, and when she does the husband doesn't and become enraged when the wife went out to seek for help.

And none occurred in the film. I mean it, none. Like I said, I was totally deceived by the first part. The eldest sister did made second fussing which at the time encouraged me to believe what I had believed earlier. Later she was spooked when one of her sisters sleepwalking to her room, that ended up making her asking her dad for help. When it happened again I was expecting the older sister gonna get pissed (like most older sibling would do when they get disturbed by the younger ones), but no, here is when one of the rare, beautiful family value was displayed when she took care of her sister nicely.

After the disturbance turned violent, we can see the wife is at the Warrens's lecture (as expected / predicted), and she was alone. And at this point I'm still with the stereotype thoughts, "Oww she gonna get trouble with the husband when she get home later".

Guess what? When the Warrens arrived, the husband, Roger was there at the door, with open arms and thanking them for coming. I seriously go, whaaaaa? This is not what I'm expecting. This is in fact, a pleasant surprise. So now you might think it's so boring, but think again, with such a nice family here, with everyone understanding, supportive and loving each other, they're truly what we can say nearly-perfect family, and to be harassed by malicious spirits, something that a good family don't deserved, they deserved more sympathy than anyone.

Realism of the Whole Film

The sympathy on the Perrons was well balance with the help of the Warrens. Though I admitted here the Warrens' sense of alturism might be a bit cheezy, but luckily the way they portrayed Lorraine being a psychic who can sense and feel emotions of other helps to concrete the whole elements of her desire to help them. While Lorraine was more than willing to help, Ed was rather reluctant, and this was nicely done to tone down the cheeziness.

Again and again I was still in stereotype thoughts; while there was no conflicts within the family I was expecting conflicts between the Warrens with Perrons (especially Roger because the Warrens presence lighten things up, I'm expecting jealousy here), or at least with one of the two assistants as we learn one of them is a skeptic.

Again, it was a no! Each characters interact well with ech other. They appreciate each other’ presence. When Roger approached Ed alone, I nearly goes, ""Ohhh here we come". But instead to my surprised, he expressed his gratitude instead *jawdrops*

As the ordeal was over, I was expecting some of the children might ended up being traumatized and now feared their mother. Again I was happy to see things turned the other way round. This is a kind of ending I always wanted in family-themed horror film and what I believed most likely would happened in real-life.

Straight to the Point

The beauty of The Conjuring is everything is straight to the point what the film wants you to enjoy, the only conflict you have here is their attempt to solve the problem, again that's the who main point of the film. There you don't need to exhaust your brain to divulge into dramas, instead you can have pure horror to focus on. With what Roger been saying through the film regarding his early skeptics, I'm pretty sure it did took him quite sometimes to eventually accepting the whole supernatural and there must be some arguments or debates between him and the rest of the family members before he himself starting experience them himself. But none of these were highlighted in the film. Why? Cause it doesn't need to, we viewers can figure it out by ourself so why bother? Or maybe we actually would not need to bother seeing the whole family drama cause what we want to watch is supernatural horror.

It Did Not Stray Too Far From the Real Facts

While The Conjuring was heavily marketed as A True Story, the truth is, it is. Not only the Warrens did wrote a book regarding this case, one of the Perrons daughters also wrote a book regarding their ordeals and how the Warrens had helped them. And after comparing them, this time Hollywood did not have much attention to exaggerated from the facts, which made the whole film more creepier when you think about it.

Conclusion

Eventually I finally realized why The Conjuring is truly a horror. While most horror films creep you out with the blood, gore and psychopathic characters and ghosts, you most likely will shake off the fear when you realized the high possibility those things are not going to happened in real-life. You don't go around hearing such things happened in real-life, do you?

But with The Conjuring, almost everything here was not exaggerated like most Hollywood films, the sensed of realism creep fear into you as you begin to realize this can happened to you. A happy, well-to do family, this is what most people have, and people don't usually go around and start a fight, they tend to get along instead, no matter how contrary their belief were. And this all what had been well portrayed in The Conjuring. Most importantly, nobody die throughout the whole event. Some did get injured, but they survived. Everything in the Conjuring can truly happened to you.

So who say you need blood and gore to make a horror film? The more simpler the more horrifying cause you gonna go, "Oh shit this could happened to me"