The Conjuring: Last Rites Invokes a Soulless Ending for the Franchise

I’ll rip the band aid off early; The Conjuring: Last Rites is a bad, flaccid film that clocks in at an unholy 137 minutes. While the poor quality is baked into the final product (unenthusiastic direction, boring script), the badness is even worse when compared to what came previously. Before it spawned sequels and spin offs, the first film in the series, 2013’s The Conjuring, has its foot in between two doors. Director James Wan (Insidious, Saw) evokes more classical horror such as The Exorcist or Rosemary’s Baby in the period detail and focus on character, but at the same time, Wan’s camera is playful and is able to create vivid scares that satisfy modern audiences. While not Earth shattering, The Conjuring is a great example of studio horror. 

Following the massive box office, a franchise came calling. I won't go through all nine of them, but a few are worth noting. 2014’s Annabelle (the spinoff of the evil doll) is quite horrid, but the two sequels Annabelle: Creation and Annabelle Comes Home are fun, if slight. James Wan returned for The Conjuring 2, a film that cranks up the haunted house antics and is probably the peak of Wan’s signature slick style of crazy camera moves and creepy imagery. Filmmaker Michael Chaves helmed the third film, The Devil Made Me Do It, while not super successful, wasn’t a complete wash with a couple decent scares. Then we arrive at Last Rites, the absolute stinker of the main line films. 

At the center of the blockbuster franchise are Ed and Lorianne Warren, a paranormal investigator couple who’ve had their hands in many infamous exorcism cases. They’re played by Vera Farmega and Patrick Willson, and are the true magic of the series with their soulful portrayal of the couple. The few and far between good moments in Last Rites involve them imbuing a scene with humanity. Wilson, in particular, brings a loveable, fatherly presence to Ed in all four films. However, an informed viewer has to separate the performances from real life, as the once living breathing Warrens led far more checkered and controversial lives, which go beyond their dubious experiences in the paranormal (I’d suggest this article if you’d wish to learn more but, fair warning, it involves sexual abuse.)

After a brief prologue, the film starts in 1986. Ed and Lorianne are in an in-between state, with Ed’s heart problems causing them to not take anyone more cases. In addition, the new generation is not taking them seriously; after a lecture, a college kid asks “are you like the Ghostbusters?” Their adult daughter Judy (Mia Thomlinson), plays a much bigger role this time, as she is starting to hear voices and is preparing to get married. At the same time in Pennsylvania, we’re clumsy following parallel with the working class Smurl family as they begin to suffer at the hands of evil spirits after acquiring a haunted mirror. 

The greatest sin of The Conjuring: Last Rites is it isn’t scary in the slightest. At this point, any fan of the series knows the playbook so well that you can see the jolts coming from a mile away, and the filmmakers do very little, if any, work to subvert. If a character ventures into the darkness, we know something will subtly appear behind them (in this case a creepy, old, witch looking lady or a tall man holding an axe). Obviously, a film can still be scary even if you know what tricks will be played; these films are meant to be crowdpleasers. If you go to watch one of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels you would be let down if Freddy didn’t kill some teens in their dreams. However, with Last Rites, the crucial difference is the direction doesn’t have the confidence of Wes Craven, or even Chuck Russel. In the franchise’s high points, you can feel the filmmakers having fun with the iconography. Annabelle Comes Home works so well because director Gary Dauberman(who wrote both It films) treats it as a showcase for a collection of monsters and ghouls, almost akin to a Scooby-Doo movie. There is no energy in Last Rites. My packed opening night audience rarely made any noise. I can count the number of times someone screamed on one hand. 

Near the end there is a flashy camera move where we move out of the house and launch into the sky, ending with us getting a birds eye view of the house. For such a complicated shot, it comes across lumbering; as if Chaves is doing it because he needs to, not because he wants to. Almost all of the scare sequences have a mandated quality, like they’re serving a quota. Still, there is one sequence that has a little bit of juice. One of the daughters Heather (Kíla Lord Cassidy) is scrubbing through VHS footage of her confirmation party, in search of who actually blew out her candles. There is tension as she keeps rewinding, clawing for the right frame. We see her get closer and closer to hints of a ghostly figure, until we see a full picture. It’s a haunting moment in an otherwise long, dull film. 

Last Rites isn’t just trying to be another ghost adventure, it wants to be the grand finale of the series, which renders it an overly sappy quality. The main line films do have their sweet moments, my favorite being Ed singing an Elvis song to the kids in Conjuring 2, but the conclusion goes overboard, including a few cameos that easily cross over into pandering, if insulting. After the loud, dumb battle between good and evil, we get a monologue from Lorraine about how she sees a bright future. Farmiga does her best, but it comes across as cloying. The film's attempt at a hopeful send off becomes an act of veneration for Ed and Lorianne, which leaves a bad taste. The previous films did whitewash their image as a good pair of ghost fighting Catholics, but Last Rites takes it too far. A terrible, soulless end for an otherwise sturdy franchise.

If you enjoyed this article, please consider becoming a patron of Hyperreal Film Journal for as low as $3 a month!