The Conjuring

This haunted house/demon possession movie from Saw creator James Wan delivers the scary goods. Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston move their family into a nice new home that has plenty of living space, a nice yard, and a bunch of ghosts freaking them out. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson play the Warrens, real life paranormal investigators who looked into this case, as well as the Amityville Horror. Wan teases you for the first chunk of the film, trying to get scares out of closing doors and creepy sounds. Then he pulls the sheet back and goes for some really good, in-your-face frights. This is one of those movies where the family stays in the house even though freaky things are happening, and that's a bit annoying. Still, Wan, who I used to hate for creating Saw, makes up for the stupidity with scares created without too much help from CGI. He relies on creepy lighting and makeup rather than megabytes for the most part, and he's fashioned a good old-fashioned haunted house story as a result.