The Conjuring: Last Rites review – a fitting farewell to the Warrens
After playing fictionalised versions of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren for 12 years, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are bringing their run to an end with The Conjuring: Last Rites.
Like its three predecessors, Last Rites depicts a fictionalised version of a real supernatural case investigated by the Warrens. This time around, it’s the Smurl family, who are terrorised by evil spirits after a creepy secondhand mirror is brought into their Pennsylvania home. The Warrens are now retired from taking on cases; however, they are left with no choice when their daughter Judy (now played by Mia Tomlinson), who also has visions, decides to get involved.
This fourth chapter, directed by The Devil Made Me Do It’s Michael Chaves, is a weird mix of horror and family drama. Horror fans hoping for a straightforward supernatural movie filled with jump scares may be disappointed by how long it takes to get to the horror and how much domestic drama takes place around it. The runtime is two hours and 15 minutes, which is insane for a horror movie, and that’s because there’s so much more going on.
In the first film, the Warrens played second fiddle to the haunted family, but their presence has gradually increased over the franchise. With Last Rites, they take centre stage and the Smurls are heavily sidelined. It takes them a long time to help the Smurls, so in the meantime, our scenes with the Warrens are more of a soap opera (with the exception of Judy and Lorraine’s visions) featuring a meet-the-parents scenario with Judy’s boyfriend Tony Spera (Ben Hardy). This is all a ploy to build our emotional connection with them before their farewell.
But when we get to the horror, it delivers the usual scares we’ve come to expect from The Conjuring franchise. There are some solid jumps, a creepy toy (there’s always a creepy toy), freaky demons and a lot of tension-building as someone walks around dark spaces. There aren’t any major characters to rival the likes of Annabelle and Valak, but the general scares are on par with the previous three. The practical scares are always more effective than CGI ones and there are a few digital ones that just didn’t do anything for me as they looked so fake.
Diehard fans of The Conjuring franchise should walk away pleased because this is a fitting farewell to Farmiga and Wilson as the Warrens. However, casual horror fans may feel impatient waiting for the scares to arrive.
In cinemas from Friday 5th September