Whether or not to believe that the stories behind the spectral adventures of Ed and Lorraine Warren are true, you can’t deny that horror’s most prominent power couple has had an impressive reign at the box office. Since James Wan’s The Conjuring first arrived in 2013, the Warrens and their various inhuman adversaries have managed three installments and a connecting universe of six spin-off movies that’s made it one of the most successful franchises in the history of the genre, with with the four release of the main rin of movies, I guess it’s time for the couple to finally shut up shop.
That’s right, with The Conjuring: Last Rites, the franchise is seemingly coming to an end with The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’s Michael Chaves at the helm, but as the Warrens take their seemingly final bow, will the loving couple manage to go out on a scare and a high, or will they be consigned to the depths of crash-out hell? Time to conjure up a big finish guys.
Back in 1964, we are introduced to Ed and Lorraine Warren as young, embryonic and vital supernatural researchers/technical ghostbusters, who seemingly meet their match in a haunted mirror located in an old curio shop. To be fair, the supernatural being lurking within the glass wins via a cheap shot as messing with Lorraine’s pregnancy, causing her to give birth to a still-born Judy who miraculously revives against all odds. Needless to day, after this noticeable low blow, the Warrens never return to deal with the malevolent mirror.
22 years later we find Judy fully grown, Ed wrestling with a heart condition and Lorraine overjoyed at the notion that her little girl is due to marry after her boyfriend of six months awkwardly pops the question. However, unbeknownst to them, that mirror has suddenly resurfaced in Pennsylvania in the home of the struggling Smurl family after the grandparents buy it to celebrate their granddaughter’s confirmation ceremony. Before you know it, the ghost-powered fuckery starts, ranging from benign acts as flickering lights and mysteriously blown out birthday candles and soon graduating to possessed toys, terrifying appearances from grinning ghouls and – in its most extreme form – the vomiting of blood.
While the Warrens carry on with their forced retirement, the Smurls go public with their harrowing experiences, getting news outlets involved, but when Father Gordon, an old friend of the couple, gets wind of the Smurl’s plight it sets in motion a tragic chain of events that will inevitably see that mirror get a chance to get what it’s always wanted. But what could a demonically possessed mirror that’s been dormant possibly have on its wish list – how about the baby that escaped it 22 years prior. One way or the other, this will be the last case the Warrens will ever take.
So, to place my supernaturally tainted cards on the table, I’ve never really been an enthusiastic fan of the Conjuring universe. I’ll gladly admit that the first two Conjuring movies were good, the third one was OK and a couple of the various Nun and Annabelle spin-offs were serviceable, but I’ve never embraced the series like some have, which is a shame because this supposedly final instalment will best be received by people with a large knowledge and love for the expansive timeline. While it doesn’t try to full on become Conjuring: Endgame during its final act, how much you enjoy the film will probably depend upon whether you favour emotion over scares in your horror film as the franchise ultimately bows out playing the “family” card almost as much as Vin Diesel at his most soppy.
So let’s start with those scares first, and while returning director Michael Chaves is still no James Wan, Last Rites proves to be something of an improvement on the competent, but forgettable, The Devil Made Me Do It and he makes sure all the expected aspects of a Conjuring movie are faithfully present and correct. Both Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga still treat their time-worn roles as the sweetest, most down-to-earth romance in horror and fans of Lorraine Warren’s infamous ruffle game will not be let down by some of her wardrobe choices, but the movie plays up the last instalment aspect by have them now be retired thanks to Ed’s dicky ticker. Pushing it even harder is the fact that their daughter, now played by Mia Tomlinson, is now old enough to marry the charming boo who is portrayed by an affable Ben Hardy and everything is geared toward building an “end of an era” atmosphere.
Elsewhere, in the more ghostly aspects of the plot, the movie trots out yet another beleaguered family getting tormented and harassed by yet another demon that, once again, uses local ghosts as a smokescreen to hide it’s true intentions. It’s all standard stuff and although Chaves has managed to provide much better scare sequences that hue a little closer to the setpieces Wan pulled off before him, there’s nothing here among shadow beasts and Joker-mouthed country folk that equals Annabelle, the Nun or even side-spooks such as the Crooked Man. But while the chills are handled with a nice mixture of weight and gloss, it all mostly seems secondary to giving the Warrens a cinematic send off that’s far more invested in tugging the heartstrings than it is jangling the nerves.
However, while those not as intimate with the franchise might find that the main plot is lacking a certain something, the reason is because the movie so obviously going all in on pulling off an emotional victory lap. But even though the movie makes the expected call backs such as an expected references to Annabelle (an 12 foot version killer doll?) and numerous tours around the Warren’s infamous museum, the real meat here is all about celebrating a family that helped families. Whether you believe the Warrens did what they did, or that they were just elaborate con artists, the film lavishly salutes their celluloid counterparts as heroes and at numerous points, the movie enlists some famous, human faces from hauntings past pop up to blast us with some laser-focused nostalgia.
While card carrying Conjuring fans will be well served by all the franchise pandering and a subplot that hints that Judy may carry the torch if the series ever does a swerve and goes down a “next generation” route, those who haven’t committed every single frame of the series to memory may be a bit flummoxed as to why the tenth instalment of a famous horror franchise is laying on the feels so thick. However, even speaking as someone who doesn’t know their Perron family from their Hodgsons, Ed and Lorraine’s send off actually proves to be quite moving – even when they’re teaming up to fight a mirror. But I have to say, in concerns to the larger Conjuring universe in general, how about finally giving us a Crooked Man spin-off and then calling it a day, eh?
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We Have Issues 
What a shitty series of films.
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