MovieChat Forums > The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) Discussion > Formulaic and unscary (spoilers)

Formulaic and unscary (spoilers)

posted 4 years ago by JakeSWITCH (504)
4 replies | jump to latest

‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’ is a procession of cheap, predictable jump scares and loud, discordant noises of the “thump thump boom” variety... much like Michael Chaves’ previous film, ‘The Curse of La Llorona’, and the other movies in ‘The Conjuring’ series (aside from the first one, mostly).

On the plus side, it still stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who have always shared great chemistry together while investigating some increasingly lurid and utterly ridiculous monsters.

James Wan is modern cinema’s leading producer of formulaic but effective haunted-house scares, cranking out more sequels and spin-offs (‘Spiral: From the Book of Blah’, ‘Insidious: Key Fingers’, etc.) than he could ever helm himself. But underneath the technical expertise that Wan and protégé directors like Chaves have brought to many of these projects are premises that are moldy and interchangeable.

It’s 2021. Haven’t we all seen enough dusty collections of creepy dolls, clattering nun’s teeth, dark cellars, spiders, slamming doors, slowly opening doors and other public-domain genre tropes by now?

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[–] Rorikon (18391) 4 years ago

Here here. See it once, seen them all sort of speak. If you're just out for some quick scary fun, then waste your money away, other than that, wait for sale or watch elsewhere.

[–] JoWilli (21648) 4 years ago

It’s 2021. Haven’t we all seen enough dusty collections of creepy dolls, clattering nun’s teeth, dark cellars, spiders, slamming doors, slowly opening doors and other public-domain genre tropes by now?

I think the horror genre is pretty much done, what else can you do that already hasn't be done already? What was scary 20 - 30 years ago is now laughable by people today.

[–] 102000 (6350) 4 years ago

I saw it last night. Not scary - the only creepy part was the crawl space scene with the rats.

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 4 years ago

I haven't been scared by a movie since I saw The Ring when I was a kid. Oh, there was Hereditary, I guess. But yeah, I still love horror movies though, and I watch them to be entertaining.

What exactly are you looking for? Do other horror movies actually scare you? You actually expect them to? And I guess if you do, that's fine, but you can't really use that a way to measure quality as different ppl get scared by different things so fear factor is subjective.