Time: 135 Minutes
Age Rating: R16 – Violence, horror & suicide
Cast:
Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren
Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren
Mia Tomlinson as Judy Warren
Ben Hardy as Tony Spera
Director: Michael Chaves

I am a fan of the first two Conjuring movies, though the third instalment titled The Devil Made Me Do It wasn’t nearly as good. The director of that movie would be helming the fourth film, but I was still somewhat curious about it, mainly because it was meant to be the last film of The Conjuring series (or at least the ones starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). Last Rites isn’t that good, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

The Conjuring movies have always had a heavy focus on the lead characters Ed and Lorraine Warrens and their lives, which are given as much importance as the hauntings that they investigate and solve. Despite this, it was surprising how much family drama Last Rites had, focussing on Ed and Lorraine Warren, their now adult daughter, and her boyfriend. I’d even say that it was a bit too heavy on that aspect and was too sentimental, and that’s saying something considering how one of the strongest aspects of these movies is how sincere they are and how emotionally focussed they are with the main characters. It takes a good while before the Warrens actually start getting involved with the main haunting story of the movie, and for much of the runtime it was certainly jarring jumping from a family gathering with the Warrens to another family being viciously disturbed by an evil mirror. Even the entity and the haunting storyline in this movie doesn’t feel that special or different from what came before. Everything feels so drawn out that it feels too long at 2 hours and 15 minutes, and it is paced really slowly, especially in the first half. It felt like the number one objective of this movie was to give closure to these characters, and I suppose as a final film (not including the upcoming prequel), it works fine enough.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are great again, they share believable chemistry and unsurprisingly they were the best part of the movie. Mia Tomilson as their grown up daughter Judy was one of the highlights, if only for the fact they give her something to do in this movie, and I also liked the addition of Ben Hardy.

Michael Chaves returns from The Devil Made Me Do It to direct the latest Conjuring movie, his direction here is competent, and feels like an improvement over his work on the previous film, but it still doesn’t have the flair that James Wan brought to the first two films in the series. There’s plenty of jumpscares, but it’s not that scary of a movie, and it relies quite a lot on heavy CGI at times. However, there are a few scares and moments which do legitimate work.

The Conjuring: Last Rites is slow and very drawn out, but it has its moments, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are again great, and it’s a fine enough ending to this series.