When “The Conjuring” came out in 2013, the director James Wan brought back the kind of old-school haunted house thrills that audiences had been missing over the previous decade, when found footage horror (“Paranormal Activity”) and torture movies (“Saw”) were all the rage.
The film was a success at the box office — and it was also surprisingly well-done, relying on inventive sound design and patient, fluid camerawork that always got you when you least expected it. Set in the 1970s (just like “The Exorcist” and “The Amityville Horror”), its main characters, fictionalized versions of the real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, were sort of wacky. But the actors Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga played them convincingly straight, balancing out the film’s more cartoonish elements with an unexpected gravitas and earthy realism.
Between then and “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” the fourth and final “Conjuring” movie, directed by Michael Chaves, there has been a significant decrease in quality, even as the franchise — including its painfully mediocre spinoffs, “The Nun” and the “Annabelle” movies — continues to make money. The “Conjuring” universe is now the highest-grossing horror franchise, though each film seems less scary than the last.
I would even call “Last Rites” weirdly cozy because it turns the Warren’s ghost busting into a family affair. In the muted opening, we jump back to the couple’s early years and the birth of their daughter Judy, which coincided with their first, and only unsolved, case: a cursed mirror. Years later, the mirror resurfaces in the cramped Philadelphia home of a family whose members are terrorized by an ax-wielding ogre and a pasty crone.
The Warrens are technically retired — Ed’s got heart issues — but the situation in Philadelphia brings a now 20-something Judy (Mia Tomlinson) into the fold. Judy is the main character in “Annabelle Comes Home” (2019), where she discovers she takes after mother in her ability to sense paranormal phenomena. In “Last Rites,” her visions start picking up again just as she’s preparing to tie the knot with her genial fiancé Tony (Ben Hardy).
Like most traditional horror movies, “The Conjuring” franchise leans conservative. It’s the good, God-fearing Warrens against demonic forces, and “Last Rites” adds more wholesome domesticity to the mix. Because this is ostensibly the last movie for Ed and Lorraine, the director ramps up the sentimentality, clogging the running time with cutesy detours (like a birthday barbecue featuring characters from past “Conjuring” movies) and morally affirming heart-to-hearts between mother and daughter as well as father and his anxious son-in-law. Bu the lackluster jump scares and creepy-crawlies hanging at the edge of the frame don’t do much to spike the mood. Showy shifts to alternate realities have replaced the crafty interplays of dark and light that made the original so spooky.
Still, it’s amusing to exist in the “Conjuring” universe, especially because its zany nostalgia — its creaky antique toys and retro costumes, like Ed’s comically large sideburns — are matched by goofy giggle-inducing ghouls. There’s an underplayed dimension to “Last Rites” concerning domestic violence — the flip side of the Warren’s happy group — that could’ve added darkness to the story. But as it stands, the film is a disappointing send-off; more an eccentric family drama than a real chiller.
The Conjuring: Last Rites
Rated R for supernatural frights, bloody body horror, suggestions of suicide and domestic violence. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. In theaters.
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