The Conjuring: Last Rites review: 'too po-faced'
The Conjuring: Last Rites has the best production design money can buy, but it’s not enough to save the horror franchise finale, writes Alistair Harkness
The Conjuring: Last Rites (15) ★★
It’s hard to get too freaked out by The Conjuring: Last Rites, the overblown final instalment of producer James Wan’s hugely successful, interconnected horror movie franchise about supposed real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Vera Fermiga and Patrick Wilson) and their “work” helping ordinary families deal with psychic phenomena.
Though its mid-1980s setting provides room for some sly pop culture gags dismissing Ed and Lorraine as a couple of crackpot Ghostbusters, the film is too po-faced to give up on the series’ ongoing insistence that it’s a “true story”, a dubious claim that continues to undermine The Conjuring’s overall trash appeal as a cinematic carnival ride.
Not that it has much going for it in this respect either. The evil object bringing unexplained misery on a god-fearing family is a demonic mirror tied to Ed and Lorraine’s past – and which now threatens their grown-up daughter (Mia Tomlinson), who makes her first appearance here having never had her existence so much as hinted at in the previous three films.
The success of those films means Last Rites has the best production design money can buy, but director Michael Chaves lacks Wan’s fluid directing style and the big finale doesn’t even have the courage to follow through on the destructive promise of the film’s opening epigraph.
In cinemas from 5 September
The Scotsman’s arts newsletter is now sent twice a week - subscribe today
Comments
Want to join the conversation? Please or to comment on this article.