The first Conjuring, released in 2013, was a profitable hangover from the previous decade’s Omen, Amityville and Exorcist retreads, goosing 21st-century audiences with things-going-bump-in-the-night tricks copped from comparable 1970s theatrical and TV movies. Yet despite sequels that went big (2016’s The Conjuring 2, converting the Enfield poltergeist saga into a 4DX-ready theme-park ride) and then sideways (2021’s true crime-adjacent The Devil Made Me Do It), the series’ underlying mechanics have proved stubbornly resistant to change. The current multifaceted horror renaissance makes this an apt moment for the franchise to exit stage right; facing these upstart punks, the generally sluggish Last Rites presents as something akin to dad-rock horror, doing with jump-scares what Status Quo used to do with power chords.
One selling point – that these films are character- rather than carnage-driven – now seems to be a liability. After a nicely cast prologue describing their days as young parents, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are reintroduced in 1986, when the film positions these middle-aged squares as yesterday’s exorcists, heckled by students who would rather talk Ghostbusters, in the way today’s cinemagoers will emerge discussing Weapons or Sinners. They head for a Pennsylvanian household whose antique mirror doubles as a portal to hell, but there are 75 minutes of beigey soap before the usual satanic hokey-cokey kicks off, forcing us to consider the threat Armageddon poses to the forthcoming nuptials of the Warrens’ daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson).
The squareness may be the point: the Warrens have become reassuring touchstones for folks who don’t want their horror too messed-up. Within its own narrow parameters as a delivery system for bland guignol, Last Rites may meet that core audience’s specifications. Wilson and Farmiga remain solidity incarnate, capable of enlivening even speculative spiritual dialogue. The film-making pulls no surprises out of the hat, though, and gives no indication that it would if it could. There’s another creepy doll, demonic makeup from the Linda Blair Fall ’73 range, and an ascent of a darkened staircase – but the floorboards have never seemed creakier. Last Rites has Howard Jones on the soundtrack and still feels obdurately Victorian.
• The Conjuring: Last Rites is in UK and Irish cinemas from 5 September.
