The Conjuring's use of tension, atmosphere, and suggestion prove that the scariest thing to an audience has nothing to do with what you see, but what you don't.

| Original Score: B+ | Apr 23, 2015

Wan uses every horror cliche with blithe confidence. He knows no one is immune if the effects are sturdily built, and not too literal.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 14, 2014

The trailer for The Conjuring is scarier than most horror features of recent vintage, and the feature makes good on the promise.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 14, 2014

This one never really takes hold and goes horribly wrong about 20 minutes before the end.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 14, 2014

Every hand that reaches into a wardrobe, every nervous trip into that basement just gets on your nerves. Satan needs to get over himself.

| Jan 6, 2014

Advance word that this would be the scariest horror since Amityville proves well wide of the mark.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 16, 2013

A strong cast and an atmosphere of real dread mean that despite a catalogue of immediately recognisable ghost devices, The Conjuring amounts to more than the sum of its scary parts.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 16, 2013

[Wan] combines the ambiance of horror's leisure-suit heyday with the more recent brand of well-timed what's-that-in-the-mirror scares.

| Nov 4, 2013

In The Conjuring, the scary casts out the spirit of the silly, permanently, and with a vengeance.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 7, 2013

The Conjuring uses every stock scare in the horror movie playbook for a dumb, yet charmingly traditional haunted house picture that manages to feel more retro than rehashed.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Oct 7, 2013

The film may flaunt its true-story credentials for the sake of lurid immediacy but, like the best of its variety, it has a healthy understanding of its own silliness.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 2, 2013

Wan's shocks are predictable but - yikes! - are they scary.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2013

Here is a humdrum hunk of am-dram Gothic, lent prestige by a few specious avowals of its basis in a true exorcism case.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 1, 2013

Conjures up expertly timed scares and very little else.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2013

Wan's film is a sturdily built supernatural chiller, with next-to-no digital effects or gore, and it delivers its scares with a breezy lack of urgency.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 1, 2013

Wan builds mounting dread with silence and suspense, lingering the camera unsettlingly long here, creaking a door there.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 30, 2013

Wan ... builds the many bumps in the night into a small Hitchcockian symphony of terror by way of long, eerie tracking shots, dramatic silences, and sudden scares that are frighteningly immersive.

| Jul 29, 2013

...there were moments where it seemed the entire theater was holding its breath. We were united in one feeling: terror.

| Original Score: 8/10 | Jul 26, 2013

The horror movie is artfully crafted from the first scares to the closing credits, with a bold retro vibe.

| Jul 22, 2013

This is a horror film where a pair of suddenly clapping hands gives you the heebie-jeebies, and Wan doesn't cheat with his jump scares.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 19, 2013