Director: Michael Chaves
Writers: Ian B. Goldberg, Richard Naing, and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick
Stars: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Mia Tomlinson
Synopsis: Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren take on one last terrifying case involving mysterious entities they must confront.
Back in 2013, the start of the The Conjuring franchise marked the beginning of something fresh for the horror genre. A film that was able to meld the familiar based on true events with freshly crafted direction from a modern voice in the genre; James Wan was a perfect match, spawning a lucrative series of films. However, as with most long-running franchises, the quality began to thin with seemingly every passing entry, especially within the mainline films themselves. 2021’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It brought in director Michael Chaves to start helming the films, and that threequel ended up as a massive step down from its predecessors.
Unfortunately, The Conjuring: Last Rites continues in its footsteps. Not only does Last Rites continue to lack the ingenuity of the earlier films, but it also fails to understand why the earlier films were remotely eerie in the first place. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga still bring an appreciated warmth to their supposed final time as these characters, but it’s not nearly enough to combat the plethora of limp-feeling story beats and overlong runtime. It all comes together as a finale that reminds us of the stagnant and monotonous state these films have been in for the past couple of years, rather than one that would adopt the creativity that once made them great.
After a flashback of sorts showcasing their first-ever case, we’re reintroduced to Ed and Lorraine Warren (Wilson and Farmiga). It’s now 1986, and the two married investigators are past their heyday, to say the least. They’ve started to become more focused on their own family life, especially when it comes to their now grown-up daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) and her boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy). However, a case that the Warrens just can’t ignore pops up in the Smurl family haunting. They learn that this spirit not only wants their daughter, but is connected to the case they thought left them behind long ago. It’s funny how with each passing film within these four entries, the family drama tends to be the strongest aspect that these films have left. Wilson and Farmiga just bring such an enduring element to this family; these movies would be in an even worse place without them. Their connection with their daughter specifically ends up as the core to this film, and while it’s heartwarming to see their relationship be this strong after these four films, it isn’t able to save the issues that plague this culmination.
Unlike the previous entries, the case of the Smurl family and when the Warrens eventually come to their aid is such an afterthought here. Everything revolving around the family and the haunting in their house rarely covers new ground for the franchise. We’re often just left waiting for the inevitable pairing between the two families that just happens way too late into the film’s second act. The pacing here is also shockingly bad. The film drags its feet for a long while within this narrative, and with the addition of multiple plot threads the film wants to follow, Ed and Lorraine often take the backseat in their own finale. Sometimes, the film is warranted in letting moments sit with the Warren family, specifically, but the runtime should have easily been shaved down here.
Then there’s the scares themselves, which are now a former shell of what the franchise was once able to accomplish. Director Chaves is a capable helmer in some respects, but aside from the occasionally solid setup (like the mirror scene shown heavily in the trailers), any juice these jump scares had is simply missing throughout this film. One thing that James Wan did so well in the first two entries, was the timing of the scare.
Yes, the demons like Valak the nun and the crooked man are scary looking in their own right, but Wan understood how to meld the timing of the scare with the clever setup as well which made for some of the most memorable scenes in the franchise. While Chaves often has a good setup for a scare, it loses any steam it might have had through incredibly predictable loud music stings or look-the-other-way jump scares that are the most predictable type that has not only plagued recent entries in the franchise but some of the weaker released films in the genre. Even Last Rites‘ third act, which attempts to go bigger and bolder than the franchise has ever gone before, is just empty. The Wan films had their bombastic endings, but they’ve never felt as hampered with rough CGI or dodgy effects like they do here. Honestly, if anything, the film’s third act felt no different than the most CG closing battles in superhero films, which is a feeling that I just don’t want to have while watching one of these films.
So while it has some heart and the two great lead performances that have always been at its center, The Conjuring: Last Rites is an underwhelming capper to the franchise that suffers from an overlong runtime and scares that pale in comparison to the franchise’s best. Even if the film is nowhere near one of the worst films of the year, this finale only cemented the Conjuring franchise as the horror slop that it was once the antidote for.
