Written by Sam Clark
Certificate: 15
Running time: 135 minutes
Director: Michael Chaves
The main issue and battle that supernatural films that are (allegedly) based on true stories have is not only how authentic they are, but how much you personally buy into them or believe them. I am also aware that ghost documentaries are also very popular, and again there are those who are convinced by them, and those who are not. After I came out of The Conjuring: Last Rites, I came to find out just how many ''real life'' cases are in fact hoaxes and have since been debunked. It turns out that ''The Amityville Horror'' was among them, and if that has turned out to false (perhaps the most famous supernatural case all time?), then I don't know what to believe. Suffice to say, it's hard not to let this stuff effect your judgement. The first Conjuring is one of the most successful horror films of all time, but I have never been able to understand the hype as it is just another quiet, quiet boo piece of horror. I found The Woman in Black far more rewarding than any of these entries.
Ed and Lorrain Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), the real life couple who investigated these cases and the central characters in all of these films, also had to endure a lifetime of accusations (mainly from the scientific community), ridicule and so on. So no matter how fantastical The Conjuring films may get, there's even more to sink your teeth into regarding what happened in reality. The Conjuring: Last Rites is the fourth and final entry which began in 2013 from one of the leading horror visionaries of recent memory James Wan. He took a backseat after the second but has continued in the role of producer, Michael Chaves took over and has returned here. The film begins with a flashback of Ed and Lorraine investigating a possessed mirror in an antique shop.
Image credit: IMDb/Warner Bros. Pictures
Lorraine is pregnant and as is expected from your average, archetypal piece of horror, she touches the mirror and suddenly goes into labour. During an intense delivery sequence in the hospital, a supernatural force kills her newborn baby. Overcome with devastation, she prays to god to bring her child back, a wish which is granted. This event foreshadows years of demonic torment their family will endure. Fast forward and the Warrens are semi-retired after Ed experienced a heart attack in the last film. The continue to lecture at Universities as they always have, but the attendance is heavily declining due to more and more people not believing them as well going criticism in what they do.
They are in the process of writing a book and are ready for a quieter life, although we know that won't last long. They are called to the Smurl family in Pennsylvania who are experiencing supernatural events, and they soon realize that this family is in possession of the mirror from the start of the film. It turns out that one of the daughters from the family has been gifted the mirror from the grandparents. It is here that I just could not help but chuckle and roll my eyes as we are expected to believe that a young girl would be given the most haunted looking object ever by her granny and grandpop that no normal person would ever buy; whatever, just another day at the office for a Conjuring film.
Image credit: IMDb/Warner Bros. Pictures
We are told that this case was their worst and the one that ended it all; and low and behold just turns into the same film you have seen three times before. I do wish I was a bigger fan of these films. Aside from the fact that there's absolutely nothing to them apart from set pieces, it does now feel as though every single one just tries to sell you same film all over again. Not only with it's execution and structure, but even with it's repetitive taglines that show up at the start of every film, trying to promise you something new and terrifying but not living up to it: ''it would draw the Warrens into one of their most diabolical cases'' or ''this led them to their most sinister discovery of their career'', the former belonging to the sequel and the latter from the third.
The trailer for Last Rites did creep me out in a way the others have not, and actually gave me a glimmer of hope, as well as the fact that I have not found any of the films creepy or scary but instead overrated (how they are as spectacularly successful as they are I do not know). Horror fans have been treated this year with the likes of Weapons, Together and Bring Her Back (Sinners could be counted, although that is more action based), which have felt like a such a refreshing departure from the likes of these films. They do just feel like safe options to go with.
Image credit: IMDb/Warner Bros. Pictures
Well, I suppose we were always destined to come back to them at some point as they are conventional, crowd pleasing, box ticking alternatives to appeal and please a mainstream crowd which how it has always been and it always will be (this has had the strongest opening in the franchise's history so there has always be a market for it and always will be). Just because they aren't for me, doesn't mean others can't enjoy them.
It is the most emotional one so far from the Warren's perspective and the opening is sad and dark, and it does make sense to close the curtain on the most personal touch. I am surprised I was as underwhelmed with the previous three as I was, and even though that I found this to be the creepiest and jumpiest, it feels far too late for that (the film got me on two occasions, one of which was the main and best scare of the film in which the whole cinema jumped, with everyone laughing and giggling at afterwards which is always good).
After experiencing what 2025 has given us, it is getting boring returning to these kinds of horror in particular in which you can tell they are solely reliant on jumps and nothing else. I want something that stays with me long after watching it, like the titles I have already mentioned, and these could not be further from that. But constant jumps and slightly sillier horror has always been popular, I just have to accept them for what they are.
In cinemas now.
