Released in 2013, The Conjuring was exactly what horror needed after a glut of terrible remakes and reboots. Directed by James Wan, it made clever use of sound and lighting to elevate a fairly routine haunted house story. But the main thing it did was turn real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, prominent decades earlier, into modern day demon hunters. Pretty cool ones as played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. While it launched the hugely successful Conjuring Universe, I would say it’s been diminishing returns creatively ever since, with each subsequent film failing to add anything new other than a different case loosely inspired by real bumps in the night. With horror at a high right now, The Conjuring: Last Rites arrives right on time to take its final bow, delivering one more for the faithful who have stuck around since the beginning even as the scares faded into the shadows.
The Warrens used to be kinda cool. I mean, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga can make any role fire, but the Warrens have settled into a kind of creaky old-fashioned-ness that The Conjuring: Last Rites plays into very heavily. A flashback to the demonically-touched birth of the Warrens’ daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) features some spot-on casting and a hint as to why they are so protective of her, even as she has grown into womanhood. Flash forward into 1986, and that was a pretty bad year for the Warrens. Why? Ghostbusters. The movie turned the once-popular Warrens into yesterday’s news, heckled by the few attendees who bother to show up to their lectures anymore. Making matters worse, Ed’s continued health problems and Lorraine’s continued visions of evil, which are shared by Judy who is a chip off the old block.
When I say The Conjuring: Last Rites is for the faithful, it’s because the story is more about the drama surrounding the Warrens, as they prepare for Judy’s wedding to Tony (Ben Hardy), an ex-police officer who loves their daughter but also clearly has a past he’s trying to keep hidden. Do they let this outsider know about the family business or what? And when do they get around to introducing him to Annabelle, the satanic doll and centerpiece of its own spinoff franchise? Eventually, they get around to helping the Smurl family, Pennsylvanians who made a major boo-boo by buying a corrupted antique mirror on the cheap. It isn’t long before it makes their lives a living Hell.
The biggest problem with The Conjuring, and it continues with Last Rites, is that these movies are far too safe. Long gone is Wan’s stylish direction, replaced with sufficient jump-scares, shadowy figures in the darkness, and creepy toys, in this case a crawling baby doll that whines “Mommy mommy mommy” at the worst times. Every case is one that nearly destroyed the Warrens but it doesn’t feel that way. There’s a sameness that this franchise hasn’t been able to shake for far too long, and I get the impression if it went on for another decade it wouldn’t change. At least, as characters from past movies show up to help celebrate the end of the Warrens’ holy crusade, you’re reminded of the impact The Conjuring had for so long and how it will be very hard for another horror to top.
The Conjuring: Last Rites opens September 5th.
