When you hear a movie is the “scariest thing since…” you are inevitably disappointed. Expectations are king when it comes to horror scares and if you are waiting for them? Sometimes they are less scary.

In the case of The Conjuring I have inkling that, regardless of expectations, you will jump. You will also be creeped out or, at the very least, you will squirm a little.

The film defies recent conventions in horror movies.  Most notable are the false endings. Boo! The ghost/monster/demon isn’t really gone! BOOOO! Or even worse the “it goes on and on” ending demonstrating there will be a sequel if the film rakes in enough cash. Not that sequels are a bad thing but END the first movie and then do a sequel! Do not leave the audience hanging.  And there will certainly be a The Conjuring II but hopefully it will be in a film that stands on its own.

The Conjuring also doesn’t just aim to make you jump (I expect most people will be startled at least four or five times). The film aims for that elusive creepy, hair stand up on the back of the neck sort of scare. Most films cannot seem to muster these. The Conjuring manages this over and over. It isn’t that hard to make people jump—a creature leaps out of the darkness, a cat jumps up on the windowsill etc. Creeping people out takes more than that. There has to be a subtle evocation of commonly held fear, something that makes everyone go “ick” and then it has to be introduced in just the right way. It isn’t easy.

James Wan has proven to be a pretty reliable horror director already and this film burnishes his horror reputation further. Whether you like the Saw franchise or not? It was unique until it was beaten to death with lucrative but not terribly interesting sequels (note that Wan directed only the first installment).  Insidious was also a nice winter surprise of a horror film—and one of the films that helped to reignite B horror films creatively. Wan tops what he has done so far with The Conjuring. Sure, it isn’t as original as Saw? But it is a better film in many other ways.

The cast is also great.  Lili Taylor plays mom to Ron Livingston’s dad. They are the parents of five girls. He is a truck driver whose career seems to have led them to merely scraping by, naturally being unable to leave their newly acquired home.

Another refreshing thing about this movie is that the parents don’t bicker too much. One doesn’t see obviously supernatural events and then deny them. They see something funky is going on and they go find a demonology husband and wife team played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson. Wilson, you will recognize as the dad from Insidious. Farmiga will ring a bell from her memorable performance in Up in the Air and the Psycho-inspired TV series, Bates Motel.  Both are actors I am always happy to see in a film or TV show.

All these actors—and especially the five children—add to the creepy ambiance. Having the five girls of different ages is also a clever, subtle, small detail that helps with the horror. You have five scared kids, not just one and they are of different ages adding a little something different. One of the first scenes where two of the girls first meet their evil housemates may be the scariest in the film and the reason is largely the “scared” acting of young actress Joey King.

The film is also paced well. There is a build-up of scary but it never drags. This is often a horror movie problem, too much build up. It never happens here.  All around The Conjuring delivers in every way a horror film can.

Pacific Rim is the Citizen Kane of giant robots who battle huge sea monsters from another dimension movies. Seriously, it is.

The film doesn’t waste a great deal of time with back story or exposition but there is never a point where the audience doesn’t know precisely what is going on and what is going on is the standard monster movie stuff. Monsters are trying to destroy humanity, humans fight back, things go wrong (damn politicians!) and then there is a desperate situation where heroism on a grand scale is required. There is even a whiff of Godzilla-like “We caused this” in the movie (but just a whiff).

Pacific Rim just does it well.

For one, you always know who the good guys are. It isn’t like any of the Transformers movies where there is a BLUR of robots smashing into each other.  The action is clear and, since it we know the robots are good and the monsters are bad? It is easy to follow the action. There is a ton of action too.

The odd thing here is how miserably so many other similar movies fail. It just seems so effortless here. This is also a movie that people who hate this sort of movie will find more than just bearable. How do they do it? With a fast pace, a good cast and writing that never gets bogged down in romance or side plots. There ARE side plots but they never slow the movie down—they move it forward. All the side plots move fast and have relevance to the ultimate point of DESTROYING ALL MONSTERS.  Professional direction (it is, after all Guillermo Del Toro), a lean mean script and good actors; who knew that was how to make a good action movie.

One of the ways other films fail is that they rely on “actors” who just look good with their shirts off or who are deemed bankable (and often phone in a 15 minute performance). There is no doubt Pacific Rim was not created to break new ground. It was not created to be a profound life-changing movie (unless you are an 11 year old boy). But it was made professionally with a certain, dare I write it, respect for the audience. The filmmakers here do not assume we are morons because we came to see their movie. That is another reason why it succeeds.

While Godzilla may be this movie’s great grandparent the plot is basically the same as Independence Day but with the jingoism and speechifying dialed way down.  This isn’t disrespect to either movie, both do precisely what they intend and they do it well. Aliens threaten and human beings come together to thwart them. There is something positive in that, something that resonates, with us bipeds.

The best of these films also are parables about how we are stewards of the world. These movies seem to need that. The monsters cannot attack us for no reason. We always bear a little responsibility in these movies; pollution, nuclear testing or just secretive politicians.  The monsters come in through the crack we leave in the door.

Pacific Rim may not break new ground but it is entertaining and diverting. Also, Charlie from Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia is in it. How could it be bad?