There have been so many subpar horror movies in recent years. There have been a handful of passable to decent horror pictures yet nothing in recent memory that did anything to really strengthen the outlook for the genre. In other words the horror movie genre is desperate for some smart and original features. Then along comes “The Conjuring”, a movie that might not be the bold, groundbreaking film that the genre needs, but it’s certainly a good movie and a pleasant surprise.

“The Conjuring” is based on the true story of Ed and Lorraine Warren (played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson), a husband and wife team of paranormal investigators, and their encounter with the Perron family. Set in 1971 (the year I was born), the movie has a very good sense of time and setting. The outfits, automobiles, and handful of songs are all spot on. Even the intricacies of the characters seem carefully written with the time period in mind. The main characters are the Warren’s. After a very unique and unsettling career, they now spend their time giving lectures on their experiences with demonology and paranormal activity.

We are also introduced to the Perron family. Tell me if you’ve heard this before. Roger Perron (Ron Livingston) and his wife Carolyn (Lili Taylor) along with their five daughters move to rural Rhode Island after buying a two-story farmhouse. The family begins to experience strange, frightening, and unexplainable things. Wouldn’t you know it, the house turns out to have a troubling history which triggers the haunting of the Perron family. Carolyn catches the Warren’s after a lecture and convinces them to help find out what’s going on in their house.

The movie is really broken up into two halves. During the first half we spend a lot of time with the Perron family. The story is very deliberate in allowing us to get to know the family and in its revealing of the haunting. In several ways this works to the movie’s advantage but I have to admit I eventually was ready for it to move along. The second half follows the Warren’s work to help the Perron’s identify and deal with the terror. This is where the film really picked up and I quickly found myself thoroughly involved.

A lot of the film’s success can be credited to director James Wan. There is a level of tension and discomfort from the opening to the end credits and I say that positively. Clever techniques and strategies end up paying off. For example his use of scaling camera shots and creative angles work really well. And even though he uses standard stuff such as slamming doors, flickering lights, and creaky wooden floors, it’s pretty effective in its implementation. Sparse music, creepy makeup effects, and a reliability on psychological horror over gore are other sure positives.

And I have to give props to the two lead performances. The routinely underappreciated Patrick Wilson is excellent here. He falls right into the part and you never sense anything disingenuous about his performance. And I’ve said before that I am a huge fan of Vera Farmiga. This is a different role for her but once again she’s fantastic. Both Wilson and Farmiga are clearly 100% committed and it shows. There’s no winking at the camera or throwing away lines. Both are huge reasons the movie worked for me overall.

It’s hard to say that “The Conjuring” brings something new to the table. There are tastes of everything from “The Amityville Horror” to “Paranormal Activity”. Yet there’s something strikingly fresh about it even though it spends the entire time in familiar territory. “The Conjuring” has turned into a surprise hit this summer but I didn’t put much stock into that. As someone a little tired of the bland, run-of-the-mill “horror” we get today, I was a bit skeptical. But I love being surprised and this film did that for me. It has its flaws and it’s easy to pick it apart. But I had too much fun to waste my time doing that.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

I remember the first time I saw the trailer for 2012’s “Chernobyl Diaries”. I thought it looked pretty good and I wondered if it might be the shot in the arm that the struggling horror genre desperately needed. Modern horror films have become lazy, uninspired, and derivative. Unfortunately those three words also perfectly describe “Chernobyl Diaries”. It turned out to be a classic case of the trailer being better than the movie. Every good scene is found in the trailer and some could reasonably argue that even those scenes are lacking. Yet another example of how the genre is stuck in a rut and just spinning its wheels.

I’ll give “Chernobyl Diaries” credit, the premise for the film is a pretty good one and it seemed ripe with potential. Three twentysomethings, Chris (Jesse McCartney), his girlfriend Natalie (Olivia Dudley), and her best friend Amanda (Devin Kelley) are on a European trip. After stops in London, Paris, Rome, and Prague, the three visit Kiev where Chris’s brother Paul (Jonathan Sadowski) lives. The next stop on the itinerary is Moscow but before they go Paul convinces the group to take a day trip to Chernobyl and the ghost town of Pripyat which is built around it. Their tour guide is a man named Yuri (Dimitri Diatchenko) who specializes in “extreme tourism”.

Just to freshen your memory, the Chernobyl catastrophe was a devastating Soviet nuclear incident that happened in 1986. A massive explosion in Chernobyl reactor four shot radioactive fallout into the atmosphere where it spread for miles across the Soviet Union and Europe. A Soviet coverup followed and the true death toll of those effected throughout the following years is unknown. The town of Pripyat, with its population of almost 50,000 people at the time, had been originally built to house the Chernobyl workers and their families. Due to its close proximity, the town was the hardest hit. It was instantly vacated and remains a ghost town today. This is where our four young tourists, Yuri, and another signed up couple pay a visit.

The brief history lesson I just gave is probably more entertaining than anything you’ll find in the film. Obviously when the group arrives there and begin to tour the abandoned city things go afoul. We know that’s going to happen. What I didn’t know was that the movie would take this interesting premise and ruin it almost immediately. It didn’t take long before I started noticing the same repetitive tricks, none of them effective. There’s honestly not one genuine scare in the entire picture and the movie never does anything to create a creepy atmosphere. Constantly walking in the dark with a flashlight or down tight hallways doesn’t constitute horror. But obviously that’s all the filmmakers had, creatively speaking.

Another big flaw in the film deals directly with the “threat” the group is facing. We are never really given a satisfying explanation of who or what they are and we never really see them. Now in much more capable and competent horror movies this might have added to the mystery and intensity of the film. Not here! I kept thinking that maybe the baddies could bail the movie out of the dull and lethargic hole it was in. Instead they’re just a faceless group that feel like retreads from other films. The movie tries to explain who or what they are in the final scenes but it’s so poorly done and I honestly didn’t even care at that point.

The movie also isn’t helped by its pretty shoddy acting and paper-thin characters. It’s funny watching the film try to give them some depth early on. We get some details about some past family drama between the brothers and the relationship between Chris and Natalie is about to take a turn. Yada, yada, yada. None of it adds an ounce to the characters. But apparently the filmmakers cared as little about the characters as I did. I don’t think any of them were actually killed on screen and one of them was completely forgotten.

One good thing about “Chernobyl Diaries” that it doesn’t prolong the agony. At a running time of under 90 minutes, I was quickly able to go about my business of forgetting the forgettable. Now the film was running on a small budget and that’s evident. But capable filmmakers have made really good films with even less money. This is an example of squandered potential but it’s also pretty crappy filmmaking featuring a pretty crappy cast built around a pretty crappy screenplay. In other words, I think it’s safe to say that “Chernobyl Diaries” won’t be credited for kickstarting the horror genre. In fact it shouldn’t be credited for much of anything.

VERDICT – 1.5 STARS

In the 2000 romantic drama “Chocolat” a woman comes into a small French village and attempts to inject new life into the prudish community through her scrumptious chocolates. Sounds a little odd, right? Well in some ways it is but the film also delves into several heavier social and family issues sometimes convincingly but not always. It does have plenty of entertaining moments and it features some fine performances, but I’m still not convinced it’s a film worthy of the Oscar Best Picture nomination it received.

The story is based on Joanne Harris’ novel and written for the screen by Robert Nelson Jacobs. It takes place the a fictional French hilltop village of Lansquenet-sous-Tannes. One day a strong north wind blows Vianne (Juliette Binoche) and her young daughter Anouk (Victoire Thivisol) into town. The two newcomers quickly rent an abandoned patisserie and the apartment above it from the crabby Armande (Judi Dench). Vianne turns the place into a chocolate shop and begins to capture the attention of the locals.

One such local is Comte Paul de Reynaud (Alfred Molina), the town’s mayor who rules the community with an iron moral fist. He’s particularly turned off by Vianne for her more provocative attire and her insistence on opening a chocolate shop at the start of Lent. Reynaud goes to great lengths to sour the people’s view of Vianne but as more people taste her magical chocolate concoctions a profound change begins to take place in the village. Several townsfolk find that her chocolates cure personal troubles in their lives. They spark a new romance, they lead someone to independence, and in another case they even work as supercharged Viagra.

It seems that organized religion may serve as the punching bag in this film. It’s portrayed as stuffy, intolerant, and overbearing. But it’s the concept that’s the target more than the people. The people are treated more as simple-minded followers with Reynaud being the moral dictator and true mouthpiece of the church. But I was never fully convinced that Vianne was such a great person either. She certainly exposes several of the churches hypocrisies and she makes the lives of several people better. But she also uses some pretty disrespectful tactics including usurping parental authority and planning a fertility celebration on Easter Sunday clearly to be confrontational. The film treats these moves as positive but that’s not the way to win me over to her perspective. And what exactly is she? Is she a witch, a chocolate magician? I never did figure it out.

The film’s strongest point is its acting. Binoche is brilliant and she has always amazed me with the believability she brings to ever performance. Judi Dench was also great as Vianne’s grumpy landlady. Dench does ‘surly’ well and she’s a real treat here. I also loved the always underrated Alfred Molina. He was fantastic as a character who’s a lot more complex than you may think. Johnny Depp even pops up in a smaller role as a river drifter who catches Vianne’s eye. There are several other fine performances worth mentioning from Lena Olin, Carrie-Anne Moss, Leslie Caron, and Peter Stormare.

“Chocolat” is a movie that’s entertaining despite its occasional heavy-handedness and familiar storylines. It does suffer from a few periods of dullness and the conventional ending seems a little disjointed considering how most of the film seems quite unconventional. But it’s the performances that carry this film and there are enough interesting developments in the story to keep things moving. Yet despite that, there were some things that kept pushing me away and I can’t help thinking that there was potential here for a little more satisfying experience.