Flasz On Film

The fact that the 2013 The Conjuring became a massively successful and incredibly profitable movie was not a surprise to anyone who paid attention. It was also a given that it would go on to become a long-running multimedia franchise. First of all, it was conceived by James Wan who at that point was already known for effortlessly spawning genre cash cows like the Saw and Insidious franchises. More importantly, though, The Conjuring offered something to the masses that harked back to the early ‘70s when The Exorcist became a worldwide phenomenon as well. It was lauded as a refreshing return to genre fundamentals with its innovative take on generating scares and suspense. In fact, it was slapped with an R-rating purely on the basis of sustained dread, not on-screen violence.  

This little piece of counterprogramming stuffed into the midst of the heavily stacked summer blockbuster season that also saw Man of Steel, Iron-Man 3, The Wolverine and Fast & Furious 6, and where other potential juggernauts like Pacific Rim and Elysium struggled for elbow room, became the talk of the town as it went to make millions. It was fresh, scary, inventive and it also carried with it a promise of many more movies about Ed and Lorraine Warren. After all, the filmmakers had a stack of their cases to choose from and even in visual terms alone, they hinted at a possibility of a shared horror universe by letting us into that secret room of possessed knick-knacks and tchotchkes, each of which hiding a movie where Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson would return as real-life ghostbusters or the Mystery Inc. sans talking dog.  

And here we are, twelve years and many sequels, prequels and offshoots later, as the likely final movie in the “ConjuVerse” with Farmiga and Wilson reprising their roles has hit the screens. Directed by Michael Chaves who has effectively taken over the franchise reins in recent years with The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II and the tangentially related The Curse of La Llorona, this movie was tasked with bringing some gravitas and finality into the series before its move towards the TV environment, where it is likely going to become an episodic show. And let’s be honest: I don’t think the filmmakers had a good idea about giving the Warrens a send-off with grace they perhaps deserved.  

You’d think that having such a breadth of material at their disposal—again, in a room full of demonic souvenirs there’s bound to be at least one the series creators had always eyed as the possible grand finale—it would have been enough to pick a case like the Smurl haunting and just trust the material alone. But we don’t live in a world where film studios and filmmakers are going to cross their fingers and let a story tell itself while implicitly assuming that the combined chemistry between the two leads that had carried the series thus far would be enough to pull it off this one last time. No. When multiple millions of dollars are at stake, the desire to stack the deck and to make sure the movie would be a success come hell or high water is incredibly difficult to overcome. And this is when the old Hollywood mantras creep into the conversation. Bigger. Harder. More. A sequel must always outdo its predecessors, especially when it is also supposed to tie a bow on the series.  

Therefore, what The Conjuring: Last Rites has become is a veritable medley of what has always worked in the series, a greatest hits mixtape of sorts, meshed together with tattered concepts that have prevailed in the genre for decades. On top of that Smurl haunting piece where a working-class family find themselves in possession of a creepy-looking mirror that seems hellbent on driving them insane and before calling in the ghostbusters they turn the whole affair into a Dog Day Afternoon-sized media circus, the movie makes sure to connect this narrative to the Warrens’ past while also introducing their daughter Heather (Mia Thomlinson). This sets the stage for a struggle of intergenerational proportions as the Warrens have to fight whatever demons are lurking in the Smurl house, Lorraine Warren’s own curse of clairvoyance inherited by their now-adult child, and her potential future as well.  

And it’s all technically fine because many franchises use a similar strategy of reaching back to the past to set the grand finale. The challenge is to do it with style and pizzazz. It would have been a great idea for the filmmakers to look back at the original and identify a handful of elements they would want to hark back to or reference with their work, such as Wan’s characteristic immediate visual aesthetic, the notion of using old-school scare tactics, or the period feel… without ripping it off wholesale. Chaves does so only to an extent, insofar as the period aesthetic is concerned. The rest, however… Well, this is where The Conjuring: Last Rites has some serious issues because instead of figuring out how to establish a line of communication that cuts through the series while also offering something fresh using recognizable tools and techniques, they just ran coach and horses through the most easily identifiable elements found in the entire franchise, gobbled them up, regurgitated them back onto the plate and presented them to the viewer as theirs.  

Hence, not only will you not find much novelty or inspiration in this arguably final instalment of this longstanding series, but you will also be presented with a parade of everything you’ve seen in the franchise, delivered with very little panache and stuffed into the narrative without much forethought. After all, it’s so much easier to just take the Annabelle doll out of her enclosure for one last spin around the house and organize a handful of scares using her as a prop than it is to concoct something fresh that would accomplish the same goal, evoke the thought of hey-this-is-a-wink-at-that-Annabelle-scene-in-that-older-movie-man without aping it verbatim. And that’s more or less what you get throughout the entire movie, from cameo visit from iconic characters to re-enactments of James Wan’s scare tactics. There’s a music box with a tiny mirror. There’s a handful of triple fake-out scares, with mirrors, beds and doorways. I guess what I am griping about is the simple fact that if you are coming to see this movie as a seasoned fan of the series, you might not find the exhilaration you are owed in here. Whatever closure the story sets on is unfortunately covered with thick layers of service of the lowest sort and the thematic thread that could have been exploited on a more emotional plane is nothing but a sideshow to cramming in exact same scares we have seen previously in the series.

Think how gracefully the Insidious series handles its own legacy in the last instalment of the franchise and how it circles back to themes of fatherhood and intergenerational trauma while also respectfully and rather creatively bringing the viewer back to its own particular universe. You will have no such luck looking for this sort of treatment in here. The Conjuring: Last Rites is as by-the-numbers as they come.  

However, it is still a horror film that will work on general audiences who just walked into it to have fun being scared of stuff. Like, I know what to expect out of a music box with a creepy tune and a mirror in it, just as I know how a bed-based scare tactic with a double fake-out is going to shake down. But the truth is that most people just don’t pay attention to movies the way I do, and they will just be easily entertained by the way the movie frightens them or the way it generates and sustains dread and suspense. And it’s not as if I was making this stuff up either. I had the pleasure of watching this film with an almost packed cinema and you cannot deny that the movie can be effective, especially if you are not exactly aware of what to look for and where. The visage of Annabelle is striking to those who have not seen it before and I can only be envious of them in this regard. I suppose maybe this is the throughline the filmmakers are referencing. After all, the original was just as effective (if not more) on unsuspecting audiences. But then again, they had no other points of reference to latch onto.

Alas, because I don’t have that nifty amnesia gadget from Men in Black I could use on myself while sitting down to watch this last gasp of The Conjuring series, I can only discuss it the only way I know how—in the context of all its predecessors. And I’m sad to report that when I sit down to binge through the entire series (and there will come a day when I do so), I won’t be looking forward to The Conjuring: Last Rites. I’d rather go back and revisit the original twice in a row instead. Still, those viewers who don’t have the same level of familiarity with the series have no other recourse but to have fun with the movie. They’ll like it and then they’ll go home and catch up with all the other parts of the series. And only then will they see things from my perspective and give The Conjuring: Last Rites the two stars it actually deserves.