The Conjuring

"Yama hama, it's fright night."
                             - Cosmo Kramer

Sure The Conjuring has plot inconsistencies and unnecessary tangents, but who cares?  If you go to a horror movie looking for Oscar-worthy writing, you're never going to be satisfied.  This movie is scary, plain and simple.  And what I respected most about it was how it literally does nothing to move the genre forward - it contains nothing new or original, yet still manages to stay within itself and scare the bejesus out of you.  And the scares are not merely "gotcha" moments, there are some real horrifying scenes that linger far longer than the initial startle.

As a writer, you must possess supreme confidence if you are going to pen a story about exorcism, since that has already been mastered back in 1973.  I certainly wouldn't put this up there William Friedkin's masterpiece but it definitely is worth checking out, especially if you're looking for a fun two hours.

I purposely didn't read anything about this movie prior to seeing it.  Nor did I even see a trailer or find out anything about the plot.  The only thing I knew was from seeing an article about the actual woman played by Vera Farmiga - she said that out of the thousands of cases that she investigated, there is only one that she will never revisit.  Kind of brilliant marketing, I'd say.  I'm sure she is receiving plenty of residuals.