Be warned. Despite a title suggesting it delivers a spot of abracadabra, The Conjuring pulls no rabbits out of hats.
But it sure knows some of the oldest tricks in the book - the volume being the horror movie manual of the 1970s from whence sprung the likes of The Amityville Horror, The Exorcist, and Poltergeist.
It also tells the usual fib of so many flicks where the only hope is some guy wielding a crucifix and his best Latin incantation. The one that says it's "based on a true story".
Yes, back in the early 70s, actual married paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (here Wilson and Farmiga) made their name with the case that was to inspire Amityville.
This story supposedly derives from something madder and badder earlier in their casebook. It's about the Perron family of seven (headed by Livingston and Taylor) who, having shifted into the Rhode Island mansion they bought dirt cheap, find themselves increasingly unnerved by, well, something.
