The Conjuring universe has quite literally administered its Last Rites, the ninth and (apparently) final installment in the religious horror franchise. It's been 12 years since James Wan scared the Valak out of audiences with the first film, when Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga first took on controversial real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
With director Michael Chaves (The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II) at the helm, and a storyline based on the alleged demonic haunting of the Smurl family in the late '80s, The Conjuring: Last Rites intentionally plays to every trick in the Conjuring book. Fan service in horror franchises comes with the territory, and Last Rites' cup runneth over with series cameos, familiar production design, and characteristic jumpscares aplenty.
However, it's the film's reverence for the real Ed and Lorraine Warren and the Conjuring universe at large that could be its undoing. With the majority of the film spent delivering referential nods and unbridled adulation for its leading duo, we're left waiting long stretches for what we came for: one hell of a final scare.
What is The Conjuring: Last Rites about?
The Conjuring: Last Rites plunges us back into familiar territory. Like The Conjuring 2, there are parallel hauntings afoot: the alleged demonic disturbance of the Smurl family in West Pittston, Pennsylvania in the late '80s, and chilling visions experienced by the clairvoyant Lorraine Warren (Farmiga) and her now-grown daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson), who is attempting to silence her burgeoning psychic powers.
To open the film, we're sent back to 1964, where a young Lorraine and Ed (Madison Lawlor and Orion Smith) investigate a spooky storeroom full of clocks (sure!), where a creepy mirror adorned with wooden angels screams "do not touch." Disregarding this of course, Lorraine's contact with said mirror propels one of the film's most disturbing sequences, in which our paranormal communicator is sent into early labour in the company of a demonic presence. As if giving birth wasn't intense enough, Last Rites plunges Lorraine into an experience of terrifying vulnerability. From here, however, Last Rites spends an outlandish amount of time on the Warrens' family life, in a saccharine montage of Judy's childhood, carousels, and running through flower fields, all the way up to their demon-shunning retirement in Connecticut.
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It's this overt admiration for the Warrens that feels extremely stretched out in Last Rites, despite the couple's real-life controversies. From the film's beginning to end, Wilson and Farmiga's Ed and Lorraine are portrayed as reluctant heroes of paranormal valiance and fiercely pious and devoted family members. The film spends almost half its run time following the Warrens in their barbecue-throwing, post-investigation era bliss and through a particularly tedious meet-the-parents sequence with Judy's boyfriend, Tony (Ben Hardy). Whatever you think of the real Warrens, Wilson and Farmiga have long imbued the screen Warrens with overwhelming credibility; Farmiga has always channelled Lorraine with understated believability, and Wilson's commitment to Ed's character is the only thing that makes a scene where characters need to move a mirror genuinely compelling.
For those tapping their watch for the Warrens to get back to investigating, there's the other storyline, described by the series' signature bright yellow Courier New font declaring the subsequent events as "based on a true story" and loosely adapted from the Warrens' reported haunting cases — following the Perron family of Rhode Island in 1971 (The Conjuring), the Amityville murders and the "Enfield Poltergeist" case in the late '70s (The Conjuring 2), the murder trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson (The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It). This time, it's a notorious case from 1986 in Pennsylvania, where we're introduced to characters based on the real Janet and Jack Smurl (played by Rebecca Calder and Elliot Cowan), who claimed that their family was plagued by a demonic presence.
And it's this storyline that sees the film slotting into classic Conjuring style.
The Conjuring: Last Rites is a Conjuring movie by-the-numbers
Director Michael Chaves is well-versed in the Conjuring universe, having directed the third Conjuring film as well as the sequel to The Nun and the thinly connected The Curse of La Llorona. However, despite its solid scares, the film feels somewhat trapped in fan service, ticking off signature Conjuring boxes and delivering two passable but undeniably well-soundtracked (hell yes, The Cult) storylines at once.
Everything you'd expect from a Conjuring film is here. Real footage of the Warrens spliced with that of Wilson and Farmiga. Eerie music boxes and cursed dolls from yesteryear. A happy family being terrorised in the night, often by way of their favourite games or in a creepy-ass basement. A family dog who makes the audience nervous for its safety. Menacing notes scrawled with the words "Miss me?"
There's a copious amount of references to previous Conjuring films in Last Rites, including The Nun and Annabelle movies. Fans might delight in hearing Ed warn his guests yet again not to touch anything in the basement of the Warrens' Connecticut home where cursed objects like the Annabelle doll dwell — the film even has Wilson repeat his lines from the first Conjuring movie: "Nothing's a toy, not even the toys." And as for the cameos? Just wait to see for yourself (though seeing Officer Brad Hamilton rocking his bite mark from The Conjuring in a barbecue scene is a frankly hilarious heads up).
But the real Conjuring style comes out in the scares — of which there are many.
The Conjuring: Last Rites delivers on jumpscares
Never fear, Conjuring-style scares are present in both storylines, with the Smurls beset by more than bumps in the night in Pennsylvania, and poor Lorraine unable to order linguini or do the dishes in Connecticut without being interrupted by a malicious presence. Last Rites' parallel narratives follow the Warrens' constantly cited "three stages of demonic activity" to the letter: "infestation, oppression, and possession," from those early ghostly whisperings to the dreaded takeover, with ample scares along the way.
The Conjuring universe, established by Wan's brilliant 2013 original, has become synonymous with that classic horror weapon of the misdirected jumpscare. Cameras pan back and forth building up dread with fake-outs. Characters are consistently forced to use torches with limited lighting. Audiences frantically search for faces in dark corners, plunge their fingers into their ears, and wait for the drop. Though without as much unexpected innovation as the original (but with Wan in a producing role), Last Rites is brimming with these jumpscares, with Eli Born's audacious cinematography, nail-biting sound design by Harry Cohen, a particularly effective scene involving a phone cord disappearing into a pantry, and savvy use of VHS footage for solid creeps.
Last Rites feels like a Conjuring film in every sense of the franchise, but it's slightly disappointing the film doesn't pull out all the stops to bid adieu to Wilson and Farmiga's now iconic characters. Fan service, it has in spades. But truly memorable scares and compelling storylines that push the Conjuring series as far as it could go? Less so. However, if you want to take one more trip into the Warrens' basement of cursed curiosities, it's worth a watch, for old terrifying time's sake.
