The Conjuring: Last Rites

It’s no mean feat to combine genuine horror and cosiness, but it’s a trick that The Conjuring films seem to have mastered. This latest instalment, which seems intended as a finale of sorts for its demonologist heroes, is often very scary, but it increasingly feels like it’s pulling punches so that Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson’s Lorraine and Ed Warren are never fatally outgunned. True love must survive, after all.

The story begins with a flashback to 1964, as the young Warrens prepare for the birth of their first child. But Lorraine’s labour comes on suddenly when she’s confronted with an evil mirror, and it threatens disaster. Cut to 22 years later, when their adult daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) brings home her boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy) and both mother and daughter start to experience strange and terrifying visions. They seem to have something to do with the Smurl family in Pennsylvania, who are experiencing a haunting that also, whaddaya know, follows the arrival of an antique mirror in their home.

The opening section is packed with visions and weirdness and general creep.

Perhaps because this film was conceived as a victory lap, director Michael Chaves – who also delivered the last instalment, The Devil Made Me Do It – lavishes time and attention on everything but the plot. This film is comfortably over two hours, and it’s a full 75 minutes before the Warrens even enter the Smurl home to see what’s up.

That’s not to say that the scares are lacking: that opening section is packed with visions and weirdness and general creep. And when they finally reach the Smurls’, there’s a spooky cellar, pantry and attic to investigate, while Chaves throws in multiple possessed dolls just to keep us on our toes. The pacing and technique are impressive, even if it occasionally gets a bit gooey in its admiration for the Warrens.

There are callbacks to the previous films, and even a little cameo from series supremo James Wan, to tie everything together neatly at the end. Purportedly the end, anyway: with a series like this, things often come back to life unexpectedly. Still, it seems right to leave the Warrens going out on their own terms.