Fortunate casting (Lili Taylor, Vera Farmiga) and above-average direction, including some good spooky tension-building during scenes of things going bump in the night, elevate what could have been a very tedious haunting/exorcism tale (based on real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, who figured in incidents such as the Amityville haunting and the Enfield poltergeist) to pleasantly above average, and well into decent date movie realm. Hands *will* be clutched. EDIT: Surprise! Found out afterwards it’s directed by James Wan, who was involved with Saw and, notably, Insidious, a particular favorite of mine, and another movie that in the wrong hands (IE most commercial horror directors) easily could have been hopelessly mediocre, but fortunately for horror audiences ended up in the right ones. The Conjuring doesn’t quite rise to Insidious’s level of ingenuity with notably well-done scenes offering genuine scares, but it makes sense that it’s from the same director. Guy evidently knows how to direct a ghost story.
