As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.  Such is the case for The Conjuring:  Last Rites, which acts as a farewell for series leads Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga.  Much of the success of this franchise is due to their grounded performances, which elevated the franchise above its haunted house origins and jump-scare crazy format.  Although Last Rites fails to achieve the levels of the first two entries directed by James Wan, it’s an improvement over the last one and an acceptable closing chapter on the franchise.

Before the Warrens became the confident demonologists we met in 2013’s The Conjuring, they were a young married couple in the Sixties with a baby on the way.  In one of their earliest cases, Ed (Wilson) and Lorraine (Farmiga)  pay a visit to an antique shop where a demon has settled in for the long haul.  First it caused the proprietor to commit suicide, and then it set its sights on his daughter, who’s taken over the shop.  Naturally, she contacts the Warrens because unlike the Catholic Church, they’ll answer your call and show up ready to duke it out with evil.

In a welcome bit of restraint, this movie didn’t utilize de-aging technology on Wilson and Farmiga.  Instead, we get two younger actors who look and sound “close enough” to them.  Maybe this was done solely for budgetary reasons, but after having seen countless movies with distractingly de-aged actors, I appreciated the filmmakers’ no-tech approach to storytelling.

Unfortunately, Lorraine’s curiosity gets the better of her and she unwisely touches a haunted full length mirror.  Coming into direct contact with evil induces Lorraine into labor, and there’s a mad dash to the hospital.  While a storm rages outside, Lorraine spies a demon lingering in the delivery room.  This obviously won’t be a normal delivery, and the baby appears to be stillborn.  However, after a sad minute passes and Lorraine prays, the baby cries.  While this was a happy result, an unholy connection between the baby and a demon has been established.

Flash forward to 1986, and baby Judy Warren (Mia Tomlinson) has grown up to be a beautiful, well-adjusted adult.  Her parents, however, are at a career low point.  Their lectures are sparsely attended and they’re heckled by students asking them “Who you gonna call?”.  And since Ed is still struggling to get his blood pressure under control, he and Lorraine are effectively retired.

It turns out that all is not well with Judy after all.  She’s inherited her mother’s gift for seeing demons, and still uses the children’s nursery rhyme Lorraine taught her to block them from her mind.  It goes something like this:  “Conceal, don’t feel.  Don’t let them know.”  I’m joking, that’s from Frozen.

The reason for Judy’s visit is to introduce her boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy) to her parents.  He’s an ex-cop currently between jobs, which would be a red flag for any parents other than the Warrens.  He’s a nice guy, and the passionate smooch he and Judy share is one of the few moments of passion depicted on-screen in this franchise.

Meanwhile, over in West Pittson, Pennsylvania, a pious family named the Smurls celebrate their daughter Heather’s (Kíla Lord Cassidy) confirmation.  They seem like a perfectly normal family, maybe too normal.  After the ceremony, during the family party in Heather’s honor, something’s amiss.  Someone blows out the candle on the cake, and nobody fesses up to it, not even sassy sister Dawn (Beau Gadsdon).  The next is the present Grandpa Smurl gives Heather, which is the antique mirror Lorraine touched all those years ago.  Not good.  Then a kitchen ceiling light crashes to the floor.  These Smurls know how to throw a party, eh?

During Ed’s birthday party, Tony asks the Warrens for Judy’s hand in marriage.  Appealing to his future in-laws traditional values is a sure way to win them over, or so he thinks.  Lorraine is all for it, but Ed is concerned.  Just when things get awkward, Judy sees the ring and the jig is up.  Honestly, I would have thought that the Warrens would have been ecstatic for any guy to want to marry their girl who “sees things”.

Over at Casa Smurl, Heather and Dawn are creeped out by the mirror and pitch it, but things keep getting weirder.  A baby doll has a life of its own and levitates.  Mom sees a ghost lurking in the shadows of the basement.  Heather vomits blood and broken glass.  The Smurls naturally ask for help, but the church ignores them.  In a questionable move, Mom and Pop Smurl appear on Larry King Live.  This ignites a media frenzy, with camera crews stationed outside the Smurl home.

Kindly Father Gordon (Steve Coulter) from Connecticut concludes that the Smurl house has a demonic presence.  However, his outreach to the local bishop ends very abruptly.  After Judy has a demonic encounter at her wedding dress fitting, she concludes that what she’s experiencing is somehow connected to the Smurls.  She’s right, of course, and her decision to wade into the Smurl’s hell forces her parents to follow her.  If you’ve seen any of the previous Conjuring movies, you know that there’ll be a big demonic showdown in the end, complete with a rainstorm and bible verses shouted in righteous anger.  Will this “final case” be one that ends badly for the Warrens?

Recommendation

I’m not sure what to make of The Conjuring: Last Rites.  In many ways, it’s better than its mediocre predecessor, The Devil Made Me Do It.  The cinematography is clearer in many of the scary scenes, although there are still several that suffer from a dark and murky tone.  The plot has a prevailing sense of closure to it, that what happens matters because this is the last go around for this cast.  (A TV series without Wilson and Farmiga is reportedly in the works.)  There are several shots of inspired creepiness.  Unfortunately, the movie didn’t scare me at all.

This is the third Conjuring film about a saintly family under siege by demons and evil spirits.  In addition to being a greatest hits compilation of everything you’d expect from a demonic position film, this one mirrors what happened in the first two films.  Accordingly, this one suffers from an inescapable “been there, done that” familiarity that makes it less fun than it should be.   As someone who’s seen a lot of those films, every scary thing in this one arrives predictably on cue.  While I smiled and even laughed in acknowledgement, I wasn’t scared once.

I blame my middling reaction to the film on Michael Chaves’ direction.  He’s improved, he’s not at the level of James Wan.  Wan’s skill as a horror director is in making the familiar exciting by being flamboyant and bombastic.  (See also Saw, Insidious and Malignant.)  Chaves doesn’t have a discernible style and functions as a journeyman director.  Although he creates tension here and there and does bring energy to the big finish, it’s a pedestrian effort.  The spark that  Wan brought to this enterprise remains missing.

Regarding the performances, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are still as engaging as ever, which is critical considering how much time the film spends on non-scary, domestic stuff.  The chemistry Wilson and Farmiga express is really remarkable, considering how squeaky clean their characters are.  They didn’t kiss once in this movie and I was convinced they loved each other deeply.  Mia Tomlinson is a pleasant, fresh-faced presence as their daughter, and Ben Hardy does what he can as her wide-eyed fiance.  The actors who portray the tormented Smurl family are largely indistinguishable, but succeed in looking frightened and screaming when required.

The Conjuring: Last Rites is an effective if unsurprising concluding entry to this highly successful horror franchise.  It follows the demonic possession playbook to the letter and manages to be creepy, if not scary.  If anything, it sets the table for the upcoming Halloween season.  Mildly Recommended.

Analysis

While watching Last Rites, I couldn’t help but notice how little time the movie spends scaring us for long stretches.  After an effective flashback to the Warrens early days, the movie is mostly preoccupied with domestic life and family.  For the Warrens, they’re at a nadir professionally.  Attendance to their lectures is at an all-time low and they’re heckled by students for being Ghostbusters.  Ed’s blood pressure is still too high and his daughter warns him that another heart attack will be fatal.  Their daughter Judy is all grown-up and has been seeing a guy for six months.  The most pressing issue is with Judy seeing demons, to which her mother Lorraine tells her to lock up her feelings and push them away.  Oddly enough, after K-Pop Demon Hunters, this is the second movie I’ve seen in the past month that explicitly references Frozen, where a young girl learns to resist her parents’ directive to push her feelings down, not let them show, etc.  That’s essentially the advice Lorraine gives Judy in this movie, and I knew it wouldn’t work here because it worked terribly for Ilsa.

Last Rites also curiously spends a lot of time getting to know the Smurls, which is odd because collectively they’re very nondescript.  Each Smurl is defined by their hairstyle, their attire and their place within the family structure.  Mom wears ugly glasses and says mom things.  Dad also wears ugly glasses and says dad things.  The young twin daughters run around screaming and giggling.  The two older daughters tease each other.  The in-laws act like old folks.  If any of the eight had a memorable line of dialog, I missed it.  The only thing you conclusively can say about the Smurls is that they are dull and devout.

So what are screenwriters Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick were up to?  Why have the main plot point for the Warrens be whether Tony can propose to Judy after dating for only six months?  Why are the Smurls so intentionally bland?  While the movie does insert scary moments here and there to make us remember this is a horror, things reset and we’re back to watching everyday life unfold in real time.  (Ed and Tony actually have a discussion about motorcycle maintenance.)

After seeing four Conjuring movies, I found myself pondering whether they have some deeper meaning or subliminal intent.  After chewing over Last Rites for many minutes, here’s what I came up with.

The Warrens

The movies have consistently portrayed the Warrens as wholesome.  They don’t swear, do drugs or anything illegal.  They’re morally upstanding, God-fearing people.  They are completely selfless for how they rush in to save strangers without concern for their lives–or asking for compensation.  They are altruistic in the extreme, providing dangerous services that could get them killed at any moment.  What’s key to the Warrens is that everything they do happens without the official sanction of the Catholic Church.  Aside from Ed purportedly being sanctioned to perform exorcisms, the only help he and Lorraine get from the church is the occasional local priest going out of his way to help them.

In some ways the Warrens can be viewed as counter-culture surrogates.  They began plying their trade in the mid-Sixties and their professions are as non-traditional as you can think of.  However, the movies make it clear that regardless of how they earn a living, the Warrens are squares.  Their belief system is firmly rooted in Catholicism.  They form a traditional family unit.  The Warrens are as normal a family as you would expect to encounter in white, suburban America.

The Smurls

The Smurls are also God-fearing and a traditional family unit with minimal drama.  Every member of the family behaves according to their prescribed roles.  The lives of the Smurls are fairly uneventful…until they are beset by demons and evil spirits.  Before that happened, the Smurls were as bland as Wonder Bread.  All hell breaks loose when the magic mirror appears, however.  The domestic tranquility of the Smurls is then methodically broken down by the demon and the spirits under its control.

Salvation at the hands of laypeople

Since the Smurls are devout, we know that their cries for help will eventually be answered.  The Catholic Church doesn’t get involved, which is to be expected, but Father Gordon does his best.  Unfortunately, he’s out of his league and dies soon after coming into contact with the Smurls.  However, because this franchise has always been about the Warrens, we know they will ride in and save the day.  Which they do, miraculously avoiding death and serious physical injury yet again.

After seeing the Warrens defeat evil for the fourth time, I realized that the message of this franchise has been clear from the beginning.  It’s not that demonic forces are real, or that the Catholic Church is either unable or unwilling to help its membership.  It’s that the salvation of families like the Smurls depends entirely upon people usually dismissed as kooks, crackpots or charlatans.

The Conjuring franchise emphasizes that Ed and Lorraine Warren are remarkable human beings for doing what they do despite the risks involved.  When the end of Last Rites arrives and shows us all of the people the Warrens “saved” in the previous films, the intention is obvious.  While Wilson and Farmiga portray the Warrens as being humble, the movie openly regards them as saints deserving to be canonized.  If you read up on the actual history of the Warrens, this is a very interesting take indeed.

Things going bump in the night

Much to my disappointment, the movie doesn’t use its infinite reflection scene to recreate one of my favorite Charles Addams cartoons:

Kudos for the movie featuring one of my favorite songs from the Eighties, Romeo Void’s “A Girl in Trouble”.

There are several moments when the movie channels Insidious.  First when the daughter spots a demon on video tape.  Then when an axe-wielding demon attacks Lorraine in the basement.

In the afterlife, Stanley Kubrick must be tickled whenever a new horror movie includes a scene with a river of blood.

GM must have paid for product placement, because the camera conspicuously forces us to look at Pontiac and Chevrolet logos.