The Conjuring

Old-fashioned to the point of being a period piece about period pieces, extremely well made, and the reason there are now nine of these.

A Rhode Island farmhouse in 1971, a family of nine, and the Warrens. Wan's method is that almost nothing is digital: the hide-and-clap game, the wardrobe, the sheet, the music box are all staged practically and shot in long takes with the camera moving to the wrong place.

It is a haunted house film assembled out of the exact components of the 1970s originals and executed with more craft than any of them had.

The Warrens themselves are presented uncritically, which is a choice the film makes and never revisits, and the real Perron family have given contradictory accounts for decades.

Rated R with no gore, no nudity and almost no blood, which the MPAA justified on the grounds that it was simply too frightening.