Filmic Frighteners - The Conjuring (15)

There's something horrible happening in my house.

The Gist: Considered by some a modern classic, 2013's The Conjuring re-opens a dark case file of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the real-life paranormal investigators made famous through the notorious Amityville haunting. Here they come to the aid of the Perrons - a mom and dad with five daughters, the whole familial bunch reeling from inexplicable and frightening events in the Rhode Island farmhouse to which they have recently moved. Initial supernatural harassment gradually escalates into full-scale demonic assault at a level the Warrens have never before witnessed, and which may be beyond their ability to counter. In fact it may even put them at risk along with the Perrons.

The Juice: The Conjuring revisits age-old horror ideas and tropes, but makes them fresh, delivering the scares with real craftsmanship. (It's small wonder, director James Wan having graduated through the schools of Saw and Insidious to create something largely dependent on atmosphere.) Set in 1971 the story has a strong period feel - beige wallpaper and big collars shot through a sepia filter - that gives it added authenticity. The house is full of cavernous spaces and slamming doors, littered with creepy artefacts and under attack from kamikaze pigeons. Menace builds gradually, however, the camera doing much of the work along with practical effects (and no obvious CGI to bring us out of the exquisitely crafted moment). The Warrens, albeit assured in their field, come with enough psychological baggage to make them seem vulnerable. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga play them with conviction, while Lily Taylor and Ron Livingston round out a heavy-punching adult cast as the Perron parents. They, plus the utterly invested child actors, bring gravity to this Amityville-style fright-fest, never letting it spin off into daftness like it might so easily have done. (It helps immeasurably that characters actually switch on lights when they can, rather than fumbling inanely around in the dark. With some exceptions.)

The Judgement: 8/10. A splendidly made reinvention of the ghost/possession movie - suspenseful with expert pacing and well-judged fright moments, and culminating in breathtaking levels of mayhem. It doesn't break any new storytelling ground, but it retells its old tale with likeable protagonists and crowd-spooking aplomb. As for the modern classic part? Possibly... but let's give that judgement a little more time.

Personal Fear Factor: Less scared than just plain old-school entertained. This one's perfect for a fun Halloween night.

Filmic Frighteners - Sinister (15)

You can never explain something like this. And if you were able to, the odds are you wouldn't much care for the answer.

The Gist: Ethan Hawke plays Ellison Oswalt, a struggling true-crime writer, who moves himself and his family into a house where a horrific quadruple-murder took place. (Of course he omits to tell them the grim truth about their new dwelling.) In the attic he discovers a super 8 home-movie collection detailing similar crimes to the one he's researching for his new book. As he becomes obsessed by his investigation into the recordings, he wrestles with a terrifying suspicion - that the source of the killings may be more sinister (and less human) than anything he had previously imagined.

The Juice:Made back in 2012, Sinister is a nasty variant on the haunted house tale, with the found footage in the attic providing the worst of the nasty. The opening shot is truly unsettling, and it's not the only moment of genuine horror. Ethan Hawke brings weight to the central role in a performance that digs deep into fear and obsession; the fact that we stick with his steadily more harrowed viewpoint bodes nothing good. There's well-played drama between him and his long-suffering wife (Juliet Rylance), while interactions with an eager police deputy (James Ransone) supply a welcome element of humanity and understated humour. Director Scott Derrickson gradually mimics the style of the super 8 footage in the rest of the movie, as though Ellison's world is being infected by what he uncovered on film. 

The Judgement: 7/10. Sinister is at its most effective in the character-driven scenes and when Ethan Hawke is absorbing all the ghastly celluloid imagery in a darkened attic. The creeping-around-the-house-at-3am stuff, when the supernatural aspects become more explicit, didn't work quite so well - at least for me. But the performances carry it, along with some macabre ideas nicely executed on screen. And as a story it proves to have the courage of its mean-spirited convictions.

Personal Fear Factor: The paranormal aspect was ultimately too daft to trouble me much, but the found footage scenes chilled, one of them delivering a real moment of shock. And the ending... okay, I'll give them the ending. Brrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Filmic Frighteners - Ghost Stories (15)

It's funny, isn't it? How it's always the last key that unlocks everything.

The Gist: Ghost Stories stars Andy Nyman as Professor Phillip Goodman, a professional skeptic who debunks supposed manifestations of the supernatural for his TV show 'Psychic Frauds'. His greatest challenge arises when he comes into possession of three files, detailing disturbing paranormal cases as yet unsolved. The files bring him into contact with a guarded nightwatchman (Paul Whitehouse), a deeply troubled teen (Alex Lawther) and an aloof businessman (Martin Freeman). As he investigates each of their bizarre stories, he becomes more unsettled regarding unresolved issues in his own life. Haunting, it transpires, comes in many forms...

The Juice: Adapted by Nyman and director Jeremy Dyson from their own successful stage play, Ghost Stories is an artfully crafted modern take on the British anthology horror film. Nyman is great as the cocksure skeptic steadily having his rationalism challenged and his nerves jangled along with us. The other leads provide sterling support, with special credit due to Lawther's supremely jittery performance as the traumatised teen. Each of the three main segments has a distinctive visual style to match its classic location - and abandoned asylum, dense woodlands, an austere modern mansion - while all three use lighting and eerie soundscapes as much as easy jump scares to build the atmosphere of dread. There's a nice seam of dark humour as well, which dissipates as the story twists its way into a whole other kind of horror experience.

The Judgement: 7.5/10. Always intriguing and frequently ingenious, this is a film that trades in gradual creeping fear, though one section does have a riot with some retro monster-movie shocks.  The direction it takes is divisive - a unarguably clever post-modern diversion that risks undermining what has gone before. That aside it's a Pandora's box of subtly wicked delights and a fine piece of modern Brit horror cinema.

Personal Fear Factor: Chilled at points and rather horrified at the end, though ultimately I preferred the film's old-school 'house of horror' sections.