By George & Josh Bate
The Conjuring Universe is perhaps the only franchise, with the exception of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, to successfully pull off a shared universe. The masterfully crafted and genuinely terrifying The Conjuring from James Wan launched a franchise full of mainline films (The Conjuring 2, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It) and spin-off films focused on La Lorona, Annabelle the creepy doll, and Valak the even creepier nun that have achieved immense box office success. Unfortunately, the once promising Conjuring Universe has depleted in quality in recent years. The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2 remain two of the best studio horror movies in the past 20 years, but films like The Nun, and The Curse of La Llorna, and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It have turned a once promising horror franchise into a series of (mostly) misfires. Now, with The Conjuring: Last Rites, the Warner Bros. Pictures franchise supposedly comes to a conclusion with a final outing for paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
The Conjuring: Last Rites takes place in 1986 and begins with Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) taking a prolonged hiatus from their paranormal investigative work due to Ed’s health issues. Ed and Lorraine’s daughter Lucy (Mia Thomlison) lives happily with her boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy) but, like her mother, is troubled by clairvoyant visions and premonitions. Eventually, these visions see the Warren family assist the Smurls, a family in Pennysvalnia who are haunted by strange and disturbing occurrences after welcoming a mysterious mirror into their home. As the case unfolds, the Warrens realize that the haunting of the Smurls has ties to their very first case as investigators.
At multiple points in The Conjuring: Last Rites, Lorraine and Ed ominously say, “Something’s different this time.” Seldom has there been a more remarkably inaccurate statement in a recent horror release, however, as things are definitely not different this time around – both in terms of plotting and scares. Last Rites adopts a near identical narrative structure as the previous three main Conjuring movies, in particular mirroring that of James Wan’s original film. One strand of the plot follows Ed and Lorraine, while the other hones in on a big, happy family plagued by the supernatural, before the two threads eventually converge. ‘Eventually’ is the operative word here as Ed and Lorraine’s involvement in the supernatural case at the heart of the story is delayed by excessive preamble and bloated family drama. Part of the appeal of the first two Conjuring movies was the way in which genuine audience investment, both in the Warrens and the family being haunted, was effectively cultivated, in turn making the supernatural threats to the families all the more terrifying. In Last Rites, it is clear that director Michael Chaves and company wish to similarly earn this audience investment by spending ample time with both families on the front end, but the execution goes painfully awry.
Bizarrely, one often will forget that they are even watching a horror movie here, such is the over-emphasis on dull family dynamics. A perfect example of this issue occurs in the first act, as a puzzlingly long amount of time chronicles Ed’s birthday party and a ping pong showdown between Ed and Tony. Downtime like this in horror films is commonplace and even necessary for character development, but Last Rites gets the balance of family drama and horror woefully wrong. Frustratingly slow pacing amplifies this issue as the film takes an eternity before there is any real movement in the plot. Meanwhile attempts to add depth to Ed and Lorraine, such as scenes focusing on Ed’s heart condition, fail to culminate in anything of substance as the film introduces threads that are never truly followed up on. As for the Smurls, an abundance of time with the haunted family does little to foster interest and genuine care for them. There are far too many members of the family, such that, in the final act, a member of the family popped up that we didn’t recall seeing at any point prior in the film.
While dull family drama characterizes much of the time spent with the Warrens in Last Rites, the film’s focus on the Smurl family stumbles with repetitive and flat scares. Nearly every scare in the movie plays out identically – there’s a prolonged moment of silence and the setting gets suddenly dark to the point that it can be hard to tell exactly what’s going on before culminating in a tame and predictable jump scare. The sole exceptions to this are a scene in which a character plays a video back to catch a glimpse of a demon and another scene involving a landline phone, two scares that stand out for being more unsettling and creative than the rest. Despite more assured directing from Chaves this time around, Last Rites is distinctly lacking in any and all atmosphere and tension, two facets that James Wan tackled masterfully with the first two Conjuring movies. For those less familiar with horror, the movie may be somewhat unsettling at times, but, for anyone even moderately versed in the horror genre, Last Rites will come across as disappointingly and unexpectedly tame.
Problems with pacing and scares could have been offset by an interesting and unique story, although neither term accurately describes the plot of Last Rites. Nothing about the story stands out from the other Conjuring movies, despite the aforementioned winks to the audience to suggest that something is different this time around. A connection to the current haunting and the Warren’s first case makes for uninspired viewing, while the ultimate explanation for what’s going on with the spirits is as underexplained as it is frustrating. Come the end of the movie, one would find great difficulty trying to wrap their head around just what the haunting was all about and how all the pieces of the story come together.
Despite being billed as the final film in The Conjuring Universe, Last Rites rarely feels like a true ending. Playing like a routine Conjuring flick for the vast majority of its runtime, Chaves’ movie finally embraces its standing as a concluding chapter in this series in the last five minutes or so, although this is too little too late. There is admittedly something somewhat moving about how the movie ends and wraps up the tale of the Warrens, but this seemingly shoe-horned in conclusion and the film more generally are a far cry from what one would expect from a franchise that has lasted over a decade.
VERDICT: 4.5/10
The Conjuring: Last Rites concludes the successful horror franchise on a disappointingly weak note. Dragged down by frustratingly slow pacing and bloated family drama, director Michael Chaves’ movie’s attempts to replicate the structure of the first two Conjuring movies goes painfully awry with far too much time spent on uninteresting family dynamics, to the point where viewers will likely forget they’re even watching a horror movie at times. When the horror does kick in, the scares are repetitive and flat, overly reliant on darkness that obscures one’s ability to discern exactly what’s going on and almost always culminated in an anticlimactic jump scare. The story does little, if anything, to stand out from other Conjuring movies (and supernatural horror movies more generally) and resolves in a puzzling, confusing manner that makes it difficult to understand exactly what was going on with the spirits and hauntings all along. Despite being billed as the film in The Conjuring Universe, Last Rites only feels like a true ending in its last five minutes, which, despite being admittedly and surprisingly moving, feels shoe-horned in and far from what would one expect from the concluding chapter in a 12+ year old long franchise. Ed and Lorraine Warren both say, “Something’s different this time” in the movie, but this statement couldn’t be further from the truth – like nearly every film in the franchise post-The Conjuring 2, The Conjuring: Last Rites falls flat, repeats the mistakes of its predecessors, and affirms that this series really needs a complete creative overhaul if it is ever to return and tap into the glory of James Wan’s superb first two entries.