The Conjuring: Last Rites
The ninth instalment in The Conjuring Universe is about as hackneyed and wearisome as horror can get.
Not afraid of the dark
Image courtesy of Warner Bros.
Who you gonna call? Well, if the highest-grossing horror franchise in history is anything to go by, the paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren would seem to be a good starting point. According to Ed (played here for the fifth time by Patrick Wilson), the Warrens worked on over a thousand cases, banishing demons of every denomination. The so-called ‘Conjuring Universe’ – which includes Annabelle (2014), The Nun (2018) and their progeny – has tackled all types of possession but has saved the greatest evil of all for last. Yet, the film’s subtitle ‘Last Rites’ seems bit of a cheat – ‘Last Resort’ might have been more accurate. The franchise goes to great pains to determine the veracity of its material, although one suspects that the cackling apparitions conjured up by director Michael Chaves and his special effects team are largely the result of artistic licence. One might also suppose that the victims of such hauntings conjure up their own customised visions.
Inevitably, things kick off with a prologue, this one set in 1964, when a heavily pregnant Lorraine has her contractions jump-started by a house visit. She is then rushed off to the darkest hospital in Connecticut where the premises then suffers a power cut before Lorraine undergoes childbirth by torchlight, resulting in the stillbirth of her baby. Of course, it’s a false alarm and little Judy Warren takes her first, belated breaths to lead us to the opening title and then to 1986 when she is played by Mia Tomlinson and is dating a baby-faced ex-copper (Ben Hardy). The couple have only been seeing each other for six months, but the latter has already bought an engagement ring and is ready to become a member of the Warren family and its unconventional legacy.
Michael Chaves is no stranger to the horror genre and with little new to engage his audience, he falls back on all the old tropes. And so we have the sudden unexplained apparitions, the sound of creaking doors, demonised dolls, empty rocking chairs, whisperings on the soundtrack and every cliché you can think of. All this would not be so annoying had there been anything interesting going on in the meantime. A horror film should be able to entertain even when it’s not being scary. But Last Rites consists largely of a series of scenes in which there’s a jump scare waiting at the end, and it all gets very monotonous very quickly. Chaves has also had the novel notion of lighting his scenes with single-watt light bulbs. Consequently, his characters seem to be endowed with light-sensitive night vision, although the viewer only gets to see what the director wants them to see, which is both duplicitous and infuriating. If The Conjuring: Last Rites is not the last in the series, it is categorically the most tedious. So far.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy, Steve Coulter, Rebecca Calder, Elliot Cowan, Beau Gadsdon, Kila Lord Cassidy, John Brotherton, Shannon Kook, Peter Wight, Kate Fahy, Lili Taylor, Mackenzie Foy.
Dir Michael Chaves, Pro James Wan and Peter Safran, Screenplay Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, from a story by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and James Wan, Ph Eli Born, Pro Des John Frankish, Ed Gregory Plotkin and Elliot Greenberg, Music Benjamin Wallfisch, Costumes Graham Churchyard, Sound Harry Cohen and Matt Wilson.
Atomic Monster/The Safran Company-Warner Bros.
135 mins. USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 5 September 2025. Cert. 15.
