A horror film allegedly based on a true story. Sounds familiar, right? That’s what ‘The Conjuring’, the new film from James Wan (‘Saw’, ‘Insidious‘), is promising us where unexplained phenomena and things going bump and crash in the night.

In fact, when you watch the trailer, a lot of it feels familiar. We see the Amityville Horror home, people being dragged around by invisible forces, visions of dead people, a little girl becoming possessed, CGI bats, and more. Not to mention the usual tag-lines we see for a lot of horror films, where “Something awful happened here,” and this story was too frightening to reveal “until now.”

So what exactly is ‘The Conjuring’? It’s the story of a ghost hunting couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, and in true ‘Exorcist’ fashion, is hired by Lili Taylor who desperately goes to them for help because of the spirits terrifying her in her home.

The film’s synopsis tells us:

“Before there was Amityville, there was Harrisville. Based on a true story, The Conjuring tells the horrifying tale of how world-renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine were called upon to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in a secluded farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful demonic entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives.”

We’ve seen two trailers for ‘The Conjuring’ so far, and the early, more minimalist coming attraction is more effective. In that trailer, we see Taylor playing hide and seek with her kids, but while she’s blindfolded, she hears voices and noises that she thinks are her kids. She winds up in the basement, lighting a match to try and see in the dark. Again, we’ve seen this kind of thing in many horror films, especially ghost stories, but it still looks pretty cool here:

According to Collider, Wan told fans at WonderCon that the film got the R rating simply for being “too scary,” which once again proves the MPAA has it in for the genre, even if filmmakers stay away from gore. Then again, horror films have been rated R for intensity before, and there is the sincere hope that ‘The Conjuring’ could indeed deserve the rating for that reason.

We’ll find out for certain when ‘The Conjuring’ comes out on July 19.