The Conjuring: Last Rites Review: Warrens’ Worst Movie in Horror Series

Photo Credit: Warner Bros (via MediaPass)

The Conjuring Universe returns for the case that ended it all. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren in the fourth main Conjuring movie and the ninth installment in this series (not counting The Curse of La Llorona and that Sharon Tate movie that shall not be named). The Conjuring: Last Rites is based on the true story of the Smurl haunting. Unfortunately, it appears that James Wan has moved on from directing this series, as Michael Chaves has become the series’ creative lead. This will be the movie that makes you miss Wan.

Chaves has directed a few movies in this franchise, and each one has felt better than the others. He was on a steady track of improvement from La Llorona (if that counts) to The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It to The Nun II. This is the first movie of his that feels like a minor step back, even if there are good intentions here. The Conjuring: Last Rites aims to wrap this franchise in a bow and finish things off on a good note with one last haunting and goodbye to the Warrens.

Does it succeed? Partially. Some longtime fans will find something to enjoy about this sequel, but there was a noticeable step down between the Wan-helmed Conjuring 1 and 2 and the Chaves-directed 3rd film. This is much more in line with that third film in terms of quality, meaning it’s not terrible, but it is disappointing. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It had the novelty of following the first court case where the defense claimed demonic possession to deny personal responsibility for a crime. The Conjuring: Last Rites feels like a cheap imitation of the first two Conjuring movies, with very little that is special about it that we haven’t already seen done better from this series.

This movie opens with the Warrens as a younger couple in the early 1960s investigating one of their first paranormal cases. I was very impressed by Orion Smith and Madison Lawlor, the actors who play the younger versions of Ed and Lorraine. While I watched it, I couldn’t tell if they were younger actors or if it was the most convincing de-aging effect on older actors I’d ever seen. They were better casting choices than the two (also good) actors who played young Ed and Lorraine in the previous film. They get all the mannerisms spot-on.

It’s a chilling opening because, as they investigate, Lorraine goes into labor, and they rush her to the infirmary to give birth to Judy. At the same time, the haunting follows them there. This is likely the best scene in the entire film because Chaves is very restrained in his direction, using a lot of silence and darkness to build tension throughout this sequence. We never got to see the circumstances surrounding Judy’s birth, and this movie gives us a new insight into her. We had previously seen Judy in her youth and adolescence in the other Conjuring films, and she has a lead role in Annabelle Comes Home.

But here, Mia Tomlinson steps into the role of Judy, now an adult and dating a man named Tony Spera (Ben Hardy). From there, a lot of this movie feels like stuff we’ve seen before. There’s a nice family element here with Tony wanting to propose to Judy, but being slightly scared of his girlfriend’s dad. Have we not seen this type of dynamic in Meet the Parents, The Croods, Rio 2, and many other movies? It feels like a very conventional writing choice. Still, there are some nice moments here and there because the characters are all likable and at this point, it’s nice to spend more time with the Warrens, even if the results aren’t the best we’ve seen.

From here, we have a very standard jump scare horror movie. It follows the Conjuring template, with the Warrens in their storyline, while we’re following another family discovering their house is haunted. The first two movies did this structure much better. This film goes through the motions of that, and we get a bit of drama because the daughter worries that the demon wants to kill her, but the film never delves deep enough into the Smurl family. I’m writing this review mere days after seeing the movie, and I can barely recall anything about the Smurls.

They’re a forgettable family, and it’s even more of a shame because in real life, the Smurls’ claims were much darker. The Smurls mentioned a daughter getting pushed down a flight of stairs, physical and sexual assault, and a dog getting thrown into a wall. Now, some of this may have been a bit too gruesome and mean-spirited, but this is the last Conjuring movie. It would make sense to end this with a darker, scarier demon than we’ve ever seen before, rather than something that feels similar to what we saw in The Conjuring 1 and 2, but not as interesting.

The Conjuring 2 brought in iconic villains like Valak (The Nun) and The Crooked Man. None of the villains in this movie has that kind of staying power. We have a creepy, smiling elderly woman, who feels so standard and overdone in the horror genre. Not to mention the fact that in this movie, she looks like a bad CGI rendering from the 90s rather than something new and frightening. Another villain is a guy with long hair and an axe. He doesn’t even look very supernatural. For lack of a better word, these villains are very lame.

What’s worse is that the film isn’t very scary at all. It’s somewhat predictable. There is some fun in the idea that you have characters dispose of a full-length mirror that appears to be haunted, and now, you (as an audience member) are simply waiting for that mirror to pop up again. But it’s strange that even characters like Ed are shocked by this and say, “It can’t be!” Edward Warren, have you seen any of the previous movies in this series? Did you forget what your job is? A cursed artifact getting disposed of and then returning shouldn’t be a shock to you anymore; it should be Tuesday.

Many scenes will start, and I’ll have a good idea of where it’s going. There’s a scene where Judy is standing in a room of mirrors with an employee. The employee then leaves Judy in there alone, and interesting stuff starts to happen. I’ve seen this exact scene 800 times. This movie doesn’t care to subvert what you expect from a horror movie. Rather, it simply plays into it, giving you jump scare after jump scare. There’s a scene where Judy hears what she thinks is her mother’s voice and enters the dark, creepy attic to investigate. Is she stupid? No, she can’t be stupid because if anyone would know better than to enter the dark attic with a disembodied voice coming out, it’s the daughter of two parents who investigate demons for a living.

But no, Judy’s just going to frolic into this scary-looking attic. Why? Because the audience needs to be scared. Even if it makes no sense for her to do something like that given every horrifying experience she’s lived through in this series, she’ll go in and potentially put her life in danger because that’s what needs to happen for the audience to see something scary. Great idea, Judy! Great life choices.

The pacing isn’t nearly as tight as some of the other films. This movie is 2 hours and 15 minutes long. Most horror movies do not need to be nearly this long, but Wan pulled off the series’ best movie with The Conjuring 2, which was a similar length. The Conjuring: Last Rites is a movie where you feel the length. The Warrens don’t meet the Smurl family that’s getting haunted until about an hour and a half into the movie. The pacing here is not tight at all. It takes a while for it to get going, and once we do, most of the imagery is simply average.

The more I type about this movie, the more I sound like I hate it. I want to clarify that I don’t. The Conjuring: Last Rites is not an atrocity. It’s been a full year, and I’m still wiping the taste of AfrAId out of my mouth. This film is significantly better than that. It has a few moments where the tension is there, and it is nice to have this goodbye to Wilson and Farmiga’s performances as the Warrens because they’ve had one hell of a run, and they’re now a significant part of horror pop culture. The final moments of this movie do a good job of sending them off.

But I can’t be scared of a sink overflowing with blood because I’ve already seen an elevator of blood in The Shining. I can’t hear Ed enter the room of artifacts and talk about how everything has been used in a ritualistic practice again because this dialogue has been copied and pasted from all the previous movies. During the whole movie, the characters keep saying, “Something feels different this time.” I wish the movie had actually done something different rather than telling me that over and over again. If you’re a fan of The Conjuring series, this movie may be up your alley because you’ll want to see how it ends for these characters, but casual horror fans can skip it.

SCORE: 5/10

As ComingSoon’s review policy explains, a score of 5 equates to “Mediocre.” The positives and negatives wind up negating each other, making it a wash.

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Disclosure: ComingSoon attended a press screening for our The Conjuring: Last Rites review.

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