Director: Michael Chaves
Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy, Steve Coulter
Certificate: 15
Run Time: 135 mins

The Conjuring: Last Rites is the fourth and supposedly final film in the mainline series, and is a loosely adapted portrayal of the Smurl haunting. It’s the tenth entry in the wider The Conjuring Universe (if you’re counting The Curse of La Llorona, which I do). While the various spin-offs have been of varying quality – Annabelle: Creation the high point, and Annabelle and The Nun complete and utter disasters – the mainline series has always been excellent. James Wan’s 2013 original is a horror masterpiece and The Conjuring 2, which he returned to direct, is also very strong. Michael Chaves assumed the director’s chair for The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and although it received mixed reviews, I thought it was an excellent entry – yes, it isn’t as strong in the scares department, but it more than makes up for it by moving away from the haunted house formula and being more of a crime thriller.

Chaves is once again on director duties for The Conjuring: Last Rites, and moves back to the haunted house formula. As the film opens, Ed and Lorrain Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) have retired from their invesitgations, but continue giving lectures. Their now-adult daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) is becoming increasingly sensitive to psychic visions and is in a developing relationship with her boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy). However, the Warren’s are persuaded out of retirement with the Smurl case.

While The Conjuring: Last Rites isn’t a bad film, it’s a disappointing ending to the mainline series. Chaves veers between an overly schmaltzy tone in how the relationship between Judy and Tony develops, and also the relationship between Ed and Lorraine, with sub-par horror. He’s proven in the past that he lacks James Wan’s mastery, and while there’s semblances of tension here and there, he doesn’t create a palpable atmosphere of dread like James Wan does. There’s a couple of good scares – one involving pausing a videotape and another in a room of mirrors, but the rest are rather underwhelming. Nothing here is on the scale of the tremendous scene from the first film of two children frozen in fear of something that may or may not be behind a door.

In many ways, Last Rites repeats many of the story beats of the original in how a family is haunted in their home. However, unlike Wan who really developed each family member, Chaves neglects to flesh out the Smurl’s. There’s very little meat to the bone and the fact it takes almost 80 minutes for the Warren’s to finally reach the residency is symbolic of the film’s strange pacing. It just feels like Chaves is going through the motions of a typical horror film without much finesse.

Chaves unfortuantely also succumbs to many bouts of fan service and in an age of legacy sequels, he leaves the door open by setting Judy and Tony as successors to their parents – Ben Hardy’s Tony essentially performs the same function as Shia La Boeuf’s Mutt in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. At least the strength of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga’s performances as the Warren’s mostly carries the film. They’ve always been the highlight of the series and frankly, I’d watch them read from the phonebook.

All of the previous films have been handsomely shot by their cinematographers but newcomer Eli Born can’t inject much life into the film. Outside of some effectively dreary shots of the industrial town the Smurl’s live in, the film is often dimly shot and lacks polish. Also lacking polish is Benjamin Wallfisch’s completely forgettable score, replacing the excellent Joseph Bishara who composed the music for the previous films.

It’s a real shame The Conjuring: Last Rites stalls the mainline series momentum. Like The Devil Made Me Do It redefined the series by shaking up the formula, it would have been wise for Last Rites to do this again, rather than revert back to the haunted house formula of the first two films. Instead, what we’ve got is a serviceable entry that’s overlong and doesn’t quite get the tone right, that’s also lacking in the scares department. While The Conjuring: Last Rites is supposedly the end for Ed and Lorraine Warren for now, nothing’s really the end but I hope whatever’s next in store for the series has some more thought and care put into it.