For 15 years, the Insidious/Conjuring series have been my bane, these stupid, colorless Halloween costume movies that rake in money hand over fist on name recognition and nothing else. Lately, however, New Line Cinema has affixed The Conjuring series with a franchise director, and the quality of their visual compositions, if nothing else, have sharply increased, and they’re putting these in IMAXs now after Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon did so well a couple years back. Would this hold for director Michael Chaves’ fourth and “final” entry, The Conjuring: Last Rites?

No.

West Pittston, Pennsylvania, 1986- the Smurl family has reported that their duplex is haunted by a demon that physically and sexually assaults them. This has been going on for 12 years before known con artists Ed and Lorraine Warren swoop in with press contacts and a book deal. The Smurls would remain in the duplex for two more years, now complaining about continued press attention instead of the demon they claimed was raping them. The woman they sold to says she’s never seen anything supernatural, nor have their nextdoor neighbors.

The Conjuring: Last Rites spins this into a story that is not only true and PG-13, but one that was actually about the Warrens (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) all along. After dicking around for an hour or so, they discover the obviously haunted mirror Heather Smurl (Kíla Lord Cassidy) was gifted for her confirmation is the very same mirror they’d investigated during a cold open sequence set in 1964, late in Lorraine Warren’s pregnancy. The mirror demon doesn’t want the Smurls at all, he wants the Warren’s daughter, Judy (Mia Tomlinson), with her boyfriend Tony Spera (Ben Hardy) along for the ride.

The consolidation of major motion pictures over the past 15 years has carried fears about the death of creativity, that good filmmakers won’t want to participate in this system. In some ways this has played out, especially with Marvel and Star Wars, but the thing about creative people is they always find a way to create, and one of the things we’ve seen is the emergence of franchise directors. The model for this is David Yates, who’s helmed every Harry Potter movie since glowing the series up in 2007’s Order of the Phoenix, and Francis Lawrence has directed five out of six total Hunger Games movies after starting his career with Constantine and I Am Legend.

The Conjuring has Chaves, also credited as executive producer, who made his directorial debut with spinoff film The Curse of La Llorona in 2019 and was then handed a monopoly on the series. After Last Rites, he’s directed twice as many Conjuring movies as James Wan, the series originator and producer who retains control through his Atomic Monster production label. These are his only films, so it’s impossible to assess him outside this context, but he’s brought a noticeable flair to the series consistent across three cinematographers.

Well, two. Cinematography is where Last Rites, shot by Eli Born, lets me down. There are some major lighting swings, but none of the stark pictorials that make Chaves’ other efforts redeemable. Visually, it’s similar to the series’ weaker efforts, too dark to see and focused on its awful costumes. Production designer John Frankish deserves a thumbs up here, though the movie rarely makes the most of its sets.

If anything, there’s an emphasis on close-ups and the idea that the Warrens are fighting their own demons, which is expressed visually but not supported by the narrative, but that puts things in the actors’ hands, making it a mixed benefit. Cassidy is giving it everything, but as always, Farmiga is overacting and Wilson is underacting in the lead roles.

With dozens of scare sequences, a handful of which are creative and energetic if not effective, and barely a moment to catch your breath, The Conjuring: Last Rites is trying very hard to entertain you. That’s something I beg for from horror movies, more horror for my buck, and the plan for that was in place here, even if the execution doesn’t keep up.

There’s a fine line between action and horror, but the Warrens stay firmly on the back foot. It’s a consistent hole in their characters, these renowned demonologists who remain jumpy and ineffective across several films, but Last Rites draws attention to it as they start boasting “we don’t run,” and then we watch them scream and overact and, once they can gather themselves, run at every loud noise in the film.

The thing I can never forgive in these movies is the monster costumes are all so plane-Jane boring that they become difficult to describe. Every one of these Conjuring movies, the villain is a smiling dude in enough makeup to just barely dip into the uncanny valley and then scurry back out again. I could not pick any of these designs out of a lineup to save my own soul. “Minimalist” is too generous a description – it’s just a failure to deliver. These are supposed to be horror movies, and after 15 years, they still refuse to shape up and show me something scary. 

What these movies think is really scary, or at least popular, is that stupid-looking Annabelle doll. The series opened on a long close-up of her as a cold open to the Warrens, and the less I care anymore, the further out of their way new installments go to shove her back in my face – but that’s the rub. Last Rites was billed as the series finale. It’s a celebration of The Conjuring-verse made especially for people who love it, and those people must exist, because this blew the doors off with a series-record $84 million and has already crossed $200 million worldwide.

In some ways, it’s easy to see why these movies make so much money. They’re Catholic-oriented films as mainstream as the MCU. I’ve come to think of them as a feminine counterpart to the MCU, one true-crime anxiety and the other sarcastic action-figure power fantasy, equally safe bets for people who don’t go to the movies very often not that they’ll have a quality experience, but a predictable one. These are risk-averse, name-brand movies for risk-averse filmgoers who default to titles they recognize, whether or not they’ve seen previous films – hence the increasing returns for sequels.

There will, of course, be sequels. Last Rites spends most of its energy setting up Spera and Judy Warren to take up her parents’ mantle, but more importantly, their standoffish, anxious sexual dynamic – a lot of the focus is on how Spera’s courtship mirrors Ed Warren’s. It’s as gross as it sounds. Teenagers who thought the first Conjuring was hardcore in 2013 will be in their late 20s at youngest by now, so Last Rites’ reassurance to its viewers, that your kids will grow up to be just as sexually frustrated as you are, is at least aiming at the people who might want to hear that.

I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince me to give these movies another chance, but it’ll probably be very easy. Discussions right now are about a spinoff with Judy Warren or a prequel with younger actors, who lead Last Rites off in that sequence set in ’64, so they’re nice and set up for a big-budget disaster with their stars taking a back seat.

It’s just as likely there’ll be no hook, and whatever comes next will be sold on the strength of the rest of the series, such as it is.

Leopold Knopp is a UNT graduate. If you liked this post, you can donate to Reel Entropy here. Like Reel Entropy on Facebook and reach out to me at reelentropy@gmail.com.