Film review: The Conjuring: Last Rites

In a little over a decade, The Conjuring has, when you include all its various offshoots like Annabelle and The Nun, now got claim to being the highest grossing horror franchise of all time. This is probably worth examining by their own paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. There’s very good source material – or, at least, based on the real-life escapades of two genuine 20th century paranormal investigators gives a good jumping-off point, and you can say it’s Based On A True Story (wink) – but the name is often haunted by a low hit-rate for being any good.

This fourth, final offering from the original series and ninth – ninth! ­­– flick overall in the Conjuring Cinematic Universe lays things to rest for the Warrens about as well as one could hope. It’s not Last Shites, certainly better and more fun than the abominable Exorcist: Believer, but as in real life, skeptics won’t be convinced about what the couple are doing. Even if it is set in terrifying… (Dracula voice) Pennsylvania.

The action remains satisfyingly Exorcist-as-done-by-The-X-Files. A teenage member of the Smurl family is gifted a mirror her grandparents scored at a swap-meet. Little does she know that it’s packed with evil. Its one-time owners had actually been the Warrens, who’d fallen afoul of its demonic energy, causing their daughter Judy to almost die during her birth. It also left both mother and daughter susceptible to terrible visions, which the elder has taught her child to combat by reciting Lucy Locket. When the new kids try to get rid of the mirror, deeming it both creepy and ugly, its revenge is instantaneous and bloody.

Meanwhile, the Warrens are becoming domesticated, having all but retired from the field owing to avoiding stress on Ed’s heart. This probably isn’t helped by living in a house with every piece of morbid memorabilia they’ve dealt with (safer than destroying it, which “only makes it worse”). Judy’s also engaged to a new lad, Tony, who finds her parents fascinating. When shit hits the fan for the Smurls, they return to active duty for one last job, realising that they’ve encountered this particular evil before.

There’s some good, unpleasant ideas, like the mirror’s bloody, glassy clapback at its would-be destroyer. There's also an inspired bit when Judy finds herself trapped in a bridal shop fitting room, where each reflection could be a demon. Brilliant. But as a final hurrah, you’d expect it to go for broke. Here, even the bits that should be properly sinister feel held back (hangings are never meant to make you go, ‘huh, that happened’).

The haunted house, meanwhile, often feels more like a domestic inconvenience, a boiler replacement, than something that so often ends up with a dead priest before it’s all sorted out. Also, grinning, wide-eyed, shrieking demon types always look like something from a student Halloween night. They’re not scary.

That said, as an entry in The Conjuring canon, Last Rites ranks somewhere in the middle. It's a decent romp that, though occasionally slow in getting to the action, is fun enough. Fans will get a kick out of it, and dig the callbacks, especially when one particular old toy comes to get in on the party. But as a funeral for such a rip-roaring success and significant player in the world of modern horror, you just wish they could have conjured up something a bit more apocalyptic and final.

Verdict: 3/5

The Conjuring: Last Rites is released on September 5 via Warner Bros.

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