Dir: Michael Chaves. With: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy. 135 mins. Cert: 15
2013’s initial Conjuring was a profitable hangover from the previous decade’s Omen, Amityville and Exorcist retreads, goosing 21st century audiences with things-going-bump-in-the-night tricks copped from comparable Seventies theatrical and TV movies. Yet despite sequels that went big (2016’s The Conjuring 2, converting the Enfield poltergeist saga into a 4DX-ready theme-park ride) and then sideways (2021’s true crime-adjacent The Devil Made Me Do It), the series’ underlying mechanics proved stubbornly resistant to change. The current multifaceted horror renaissance makes this an apt moment for the franchise to exit stage right; facing these upstart punks, the generally sluggish Last Rites presents as something akin to dadrock horror, doing with jumpscares what Status Quo used to do with chords.
One erstwhile selling point – that these films are character rather than carnage-driven – now becomes a liability. After a nicely cast prologue describing their days as young parents, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are reintroduced in 1986, where the film itself positions these middle-aged squares as yesterday’s exorcists, heckled by students who’d rather talk Ghostbusters the way today’s cinemagoers will emerge discussing Weapons or Sinners. They’re bound for a Pennsylvanian household whose antique mirror doubles as a portal to Hell, but it takes 75 minutes of beigey soap before the usual Satanic hokey-cokey kicks off, forcing us to consider the threat Armageddon poses to the upcoming nuptials of the Warrens’ daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson).
The squareness may finally be the point: the Warrens have become reassuring touchstones for folks who don’t want their horror too messed-up. Within its own narrow parameters as a delivery system for bland guignol, Last Rites may yet meet that core audience’s specifications: Wilson and Farmiga remain solidity incarnate, capable of enlivening even their more speculative spiritual dialogue. The filmmaking pulls no surprises out of the hat, though, and gives no indication it would if it could. You get another creepy doll, demonic make-up from the Linda Blair Fall ’73 range, one final ascent of a darkened staircase – but the floorboards have never seemed creakier. Last Rites has Howard Jones on the soundtrack and still feels obdurately Victorian.
The Conjuring: Last Rites opens in cinemas nationwide tomorrow.
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