The Conjuring: Last Rites Review: Franchise Regular Michael Chaves Delivers Emotionally Resonant Family Drama Surrounding the Warrens, But Fails to Conjure Up the Scare
The Conjuring: Last Rites marks the fourth and ostensibly final Conjuring film, at least for the mainline series. Expectations are naturally high for this one, especially with a tagline that reads “The case that ended it all“. I really hope this movie will live up to its hype and regain its footing after the triple whammy of Annabelle Comes Home, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and The Nun II. Michael Chaves, who directed the last two movies, is calling the shots again. Not a good sign, but who knows, maybe the third time’s the charm?
For a while there, The Conjuring: Last Rites gets off to an intriguing start — a prologue that takes us back to 1964 when the Warrens (Orion Smith and Madison Lawlor), who are in their younger years, are investigating a paranormal case. It is a case that has something to do with the haunted antique mirror. But in the middle of the investigation, something happens. What I can say here is that Chaves does a good job building up the tension, both dramatically and emotionally. The personal stakes are there, and the actors who play the younger Warrens excel in their roles, while delivering the same lived-in chemistry that Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga did so well playing the older versions.
The movie then leaps forward to 1986, and here is where Chaves, working from a screenplay by Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, wanted to focus on two sides of the families: The Warrens and the Smurls. The latter refers to the big family living in Pennsylvania, where Heather Smurl’s (Kila Lord Cassidy) grandparents gifted her an antique mirror. It was the same mirror that the younger Warrens had found decades ago.
Strange things start to happen, but Chaves prefers to approach it in a slow-burn style that echoes the 1970s classic horror filmmaking. He takes his time focusing on the Smurls’ routines at home, and I get that he wants us to invest in the family. So, by the time something bad happens to them, we would feel the ordeal they are forced to go through. And yet, I find it hard to care about any of the Smurl family members since it all feels perfunctory.
By contrast, Chaves does it better when the story explores the Warrens’ family dynamics, including the introduction of their adult daughter, played by Mia Tomlinson as Judy. She often sees things which keep haunting her and relies on reciting the words that her mum taught her. I notice that Chaves leans heavily on the family drama surrounding the Warrens, where we see Ed and Lorraine prefer to slow things down. Tomlinson’s Judy character plays a significant part in this movie, extending to her personal life with her boyfriend, Tony Spera (Ben Hardy).
Frankly, I’m okay with the drama-heavy approach seen from the Warrens’ perspective, and it helps that all three deliver great performances, with franchise mainstays Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga helping to hold everything together as usual. But there is only so much they can do here. Clocking in at 135 minutes, not only does the movie break the franchise record as the longest movie in The Conjuring Universe, but it also exposes more glaring flaws that are hard to ignore.
The movie commits the biggest sin by failing to dial up the scare factor. Don’t get me wrong, as there are plenty of jump scares, but most of them are unfortunately predictable. I also can’t help but notice Chaves’ penchant for cutting short on the horror part each time the tension and suspense begin to escalate. Not to mention the lack of precision and timing to conjure up the genuine scare that James Wan has perfected in the first two Conjuring films. I had this same criticism with the way Chaves executed the horror scenes in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.
Even when the inevitable all-hell-breaks-loose third act finally arrives, the payoff after spending significant time with all the buildup, the least thing Chaves can do is to make it worth the wait. Too bad, I find the finale rather underwhelming. The movie is devoid of scary antagonists, say someone like the franchise’s iconic Valak, the demonic nun, and what I have here are generic-looking demons that are neither creepy nor frightening. So much for the final Conjuring movie in the mainline series, culminating in a sadly lacklustre result.
