“The Conjuring” universe staggers and finally folds in on itself with “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” a tedious, stumbling “finale” (perhaps) to a franchise that cannot help but repeat itself.
Even the ongoing presence of Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga and Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Patrick Wilson as the leads, infamous charlatan “ghosthunters” Ed and Lorraine Warren, can’t class up a lumbering “Conjuring’s Greatest Hits” more filled with filler than frights.
The script-by-committee serves up not one prologue, but two. So don’t bother asking if there’s an anticlimax or two at the end. Scenes that don’t advance the plot or deepen our knowledge of the characters abound. And adding two new characters to the extended Warren family further waters down the dread and muddies the narrative waters.
We see the 1964 “stillbirth” of daughter Judy, with Lorraine (played by Madison Lawlor in the prologue) induced into labor by a haunted mirror topped with the carvings of three sinister looking babies. When the power goes out thanks to a Satanic storm over the hospital, Lorraine prays that breathless baby to life.
In 1986, the big Catholic Smurl family of Pittston, Pennsylvania come into possession of that mirror, with their daughter Heather (Kila Lord Cassidy) and her sister Dawn (Beau Gadsdon) slow to pick up on the menace it portends.
At least the growling, barking dog knows. The dog always knows.
The 1986 Warrens — remember, these are “characters” created by Chad and Carey W. Hayes, sanitized versions of the couple who dominated credulous chat shows (Phil Donahue, etc.) of the ’70s and ’80s — are semi “retired.” Ed “can’t afford another heart attack.” And Lorraine is policing that.
Daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) has grown up to be the spitting image of Zooey Deschanel, bangs and all. She’s inherited Mom’s “gifts” and is haunted by voices only repeating a nursery rhyme can drown out.
She’s got a beau (Ben Hardy), the latest guest Ed can regale with a visit to the family’s storage room of horrors — artifacts from the “1000” cases they claim to have investigated.
“Everything you see in here is either haunted, cursed, or used in some sort of ritualistic practice,” he counsels. So no touching Annabelle.
Meanwhile, The Smurls’ world is unraveling, no matter how slow the parents (Rebecca Calder and Elliot Cowan) are to listen to their daughters. Or their dog.
Not to worry. Father Gordon (Steve Coulter) still has that “Exorcist” outfit he bought at Max von Sydow’s yard sale. Maybe he can help, or talk the Warrens into pitching in.
It’s always fun to consider how the movies have legitimized the Warrens’ “life’s work” via “Annabelle,” “Amityville” and “Conjuring” movies, and how New Line Cinema was the one distributor to make a “universe” out of their um “exploits.”
That’s the sort of thing your mind wanders off to, that Ghislaine Maxwell “image” burnishing a couple of unsavory characters earn when Hollywood gets on board, when the movie is this predictable.
There’s always an “Amityville” moment in these movies when the doubts are erased and all hell breaks loose in this or that “haunted” house.
The “evil” always seems all-powerful and insurmountable right up to the moment our heroes make their “Poltergeist” stand. Remember when tiny Tangina (Zelda Rubenstein) comforted that family and rolled up her sleeves for “battle?”
“Cross OVER, children! ALL are welcome! Go INTO the light!”
Farmiga’s Lorraine fixes her frightened but furious stare and grabs a book and Ed starts to read from it, with resolve. That’s the turning point the four “The Conjuring” films and a couple of “Annabelles” work towards.
“Poltergeist” may be more overtly connected to the “Insidious” universe, but the formula was never patented by Tobe Hooper or “Exorcist” author William Peter Blatty before him, and it turns up everywhere.
“Conjuring 3,” “Nun 2” and “The Curse of La Llorona” director Michael Chaves dutifully shoots the pages handed to him when the picture plainly needed serious whittling down to the emotional moments and few big frights that work. He only has that problem working on sequels.
The new “couple” add nothing but more grist for the demonic mill to grind.
Wilson and Farmiga still give good value. But this franchise and these fictionalized characters and their Catholic boogeymen claptrap have gone about as far as they can go.
Rating: R, bloody violence, horror, profanity
Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy, Steve Coulter, Rebecca Calder, Beau Gadsdon, Kila Lord Cassidy and Madison Lawlor.
Credits: Directed by Michael Chaves, scripted by Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing and David Leslie Johnson McGoldrick, based on characters created by Chad and Carey W. Hayes. A New Line Cinema release.
Running time: 2:15
