The character development worked well. The stories of the Perron family and Ed and Lorraine Warren seemed true to the spirit of the actual people they portrayed.
A crowded theater is the best place to watch the CONJURING. The scary scenes are quite predictable. Doors open.. the floor creeks. And boom, a giant Satanic beast in on top of you! Ok, a few of those scenes caught me off guard. As did the final exorcism scene as it played out.
I never read the book HOUSE OF DARKNESS HOUSE OF LIGHT but I am sure going to try to now, after seeing this film. I read that they did not take liberties with the story. So if they did not take liberties, judging from the final scene in this movie Pope Paul IV should have taken the first red eye out of Rome to get to this house.
I am not trying to spoil things for people that did not see it, but be prepped for a mom who wants to murder her children. I left wondering, 'there was a police officer, ON DUTY, bitten, and post-exorcism still did not want to take mom down to the station for questioning, or perhaps a good mental health check? I know it was 1971 and Richard Nixon was President, but by then we had the Environmental Protection Agency, so there was some progress, right?
I said before it's best to see THE CONJURING in a crowded theater, as it's fun to watch others jump and hear nearby teenagers screaming in fear at every slight music change.. I am not sure this movie 'changed' horror as some have said, but it certainly led me down a personal quest for information. So in that regard, it had an effect.
I want to find out a few things.
I want to know why Ed and Lorraine believe Amityville is true along with this possession story? I want to know if Lorraine is still active now that Ed is dead.. and I certainly want to know what happened to all of those artifacts and frightening icons of the devil that the Warrens kept in their private locked room.
I also have been perusing the Warrens' website lately.. I think the part that scares me the most is the lack of HTML development, and the inclusion of some old songs that sound quite frightening after all this time. (http://www.warrens.net/Annabelle.html).
And finally, I am asking myself, as I have done so many times before in life, this question: Is there a God, and is there a Satan?
We have heard so many opine on the existence of both, and along with that fundamentalists are as sure of God as Satan worshipers are of the devil incarnate. But I think most of us don't know at all. We can have faith.. but that faith will be tested throughout life. The Warrens in this movie seemed to have faith and never consider anything at test of it, but instead it only fortified their belief in God.
No spoilers intended, but there is a quote at the end of the CONJURING. It was said, I suppose, from Ed Warren: "The fairy tale is true. The devil does exist. God indeed exists. And for us, as people, our very destiny hinges upon which one we elect to follow."
The CONJURING succeeded in the scare department.. it was good with the characters.. it left some items to be desired and opened the door for questions as to whether the mental health of the Perron family should have been studied further.
But it succeeded most of all in forcing us all to ask the question, quietly as we drove home: Was Ed Warren's quote 100% right?