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By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
The Warrens return for what turns out to be their final case in a horrific showdown with supernatural forces. “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is the fourth and final installment of this celebrated horror franchise that center around the real-life paranormal investigators of Ed and Lorraine Warren. As in the previous installments, this is based on a true story, taken directly from their case files.
It is 1986, and Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are semi-retired from helping families with their haunted homes and demonic possessions. Their daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) is grown now but has inherited the gift/curse from her mother of being clairvoyant and a medium. Intent on leading a normal life, she’s been able to subdue those visions and foster a loving relationship with her boyfriend, Tony Spera (Ben Hardy).
Everything seems to be going well for the Warrens until they get wind of a particularly traumatizing haunting occurring in the Smurl family home in a rural town of Pennsylvania. Despite Ed’s heart troubles, they cast retirement to the side, rushing to the aid of this beleaguered family. When they uncover the bone-chilling truth of this insidious haunting, they know they must not only wage war to save the Smurls, but to also save themselves.
This is the second film of this series Michael Chaves has now directed, having also helmed the third installment in 2021. He does a decent job of maintaining the integrity of the franchise that James Wan created with those incredible first two films. Chaves incorporates plenty of tension building techniques to induce a good amount of armrest gripping terror throughout the film. The jump scares are frequent and well done, successfully surprising viewers time and time again even though they know it’s coming. This goes a long way to give audiences that thrill ride they’ve come to expect with these movies.
Potential attendees should be aware that Chaves does take great liberties with the source material. Much of what is shown is fictionalized for theatrical purposes. For example, the real-life haunting of the Smurl family was not instigated by a demonically possessed mirror as portrayed in the movie. There are multiple key plot points like this that are completely fabricated to increase the horror element. It makes one wonder if Ed and Lorraine Warren would have signed off on this movie if they were still alive today.
Factual inconsistencies aside, the real crux of the film’s issues that could turn viewers away is the pacing and odd cinematography choices. Chaves basically makes two films and sloshes them together to make a rather slow slushy. He spends an exorbitant amount of time focusing on the Warren family that becomes a rather mundane drama only to suddenly switch gears to the nightmare in which the Smurl family is living. There are a number of unnecessary scenes that should’ve been cut to prevent this drag from occurring. Chaves also uses too many closeup shots and continuous shots that make the audience feel like the cameraman is filming them while on roller skates. The depiction of the evil spirits is overdone to the point of comedy with their ghoulish, ear-to-ear grinning that makes it seem like they wondered off the set of “Smile”.
The first two “Conjuring” films are undeniably two of the best horror films to be made in the past quarter decade and give credit to Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, whose classy performances made these real-life characters worth watching and caring about throughout this franchise. With this being the final film, they deserved a better sendoff than this. “The Conjuring: Last Rites” may not come close to matching the quality of those predecessors, but it still has enough adrenaline pumping, jarring scares to make it worth a trip to the theater. In addition, fans will be pleased to see cameos and subtle references to prior films that reward their investment.
This movie earns:
