The Conjuring (2013), R, 3.5 stars

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga.

Traditional horror films, nowadays, are basically targeting audiences who enjoy the aspect of a pole going right through a person's chest or torso, or a knife stabbed on the head. People just love gore. I am not the kind of guy that really enjoys gory horror films, but they have to have creativity, entertainment and some sort of unpredictable scare and originality. As for this movie, this does not a lot of gore, but a lot of unexpected scares and that's why I considered this to be a truly terrific horror movie. It is one that people will watch during a Halloween season or when a girlfriend wants to "watch" it with her boyfriend.

In 1971, The Perron family move into a farmhouse in Rhode Island. Everything is normal with the family and everyone is happy, I mean, what's the worst that can happen? The family dog, Sadie, refuses to enter the house for an odd reason and one of the daughters find a closed entrance to the cellar. Hmmm, very peculiar?

Carolyn (Lili Taylor) wakes up with a nasty bruise and Sadie is found dead outside the house. Over the next several days, paranormal activities are occurring in the house: the clocks stop at the same time, and sounds of various voice giggling and whispering throughout the house. It does like kind of a gimmick in these movies, but this gimmick provides one of the scares. Carolyn contacts paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) to examine the house, but they might have to perform an exorcism, but also, they have to ask permission from the Catholic Church to perform it. Uh oh!

The Perron family: A normal family living in a quiet home...not.

This movie provides all sorts of scares and excitement, I mean, I even thought that this horror movie was a little better than last year's very good The Cabin in the Woods. This movie proves that you do not have to have gore or blood to produce a good movie; you just have to be smart and look from the point of the view of the audience.

It is a well-crafted and well-shot movie setting up a scene where any scare could come at any minute. I mean, there are a few clichéd horror moments, but the best moments happen when it psychologically haunts you and does not let you gasp in disgusted agony that you want to leave the theater. I thought every cast member was good in this movie because they did not look like stupid phony caricatures that could just be identified as a victim in generic horror films.

James Wan should be ranked with the top horror directors such as Wes Craven, John Carpenter, and Alfred Hitchock. He has made two pretty good horror movies like Saw and the first Insidious. He has an eye to set up a scene and make the audience speculate on what is going to happen and the result will not end cheap. There are echoes to the brilliant The Exorcist with setting up themes of dark dread. I congratulate Wan for creating such a good story with interesting characters in a horror genre. This is a very good movie to watch on Halloween.

***1/2