The Conjuring - Last Rites

Warren Piece

The Conjuring - Last Rites
Directed by Michael Chaves
Canada/USA 2025
Atomic Monster
UK cinema release print.

Warning: Slight plot spoilers.

The Conjuring - Last Rites is the fourth and, allegedly (don’t believe it for a minute unless the box office really tanks), final of the main, pure stream of the Conjuringverse (or Warrenverse would perhaps be more apt?) movies which, by my count, makes it the seventh of the ten films in the franchise to date to feature Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga  as real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. Now, I heard a really allergic review to this movie by one of my favourite reviewers which damned this film for being about something that has since been debunked (again, allegedly) and for going to way too supernatural places that are unlikely to have happened in real life. 

All I will say about that is that, since The Conjuring 2 - The Enfield Case (as it was known over here in the UK and reviewed by me here) it’s pretty obvious the films... which originally included input from The Warrens themselves, in the very early stages and were designed to be scary dramatisations, if memory serves... are extremely enhanced, to say the least, renderings of what may or may not have happened. And I personally don’t really care... these were designed to be supernatural entertainments, first and foremost so, not bothered, it’s not a problem for me.

Maybe that’s why I responded so positively to this one. 

The film starts off in 1966 when Lorraine is pregnant with their child Judy and The Warrens go to try and help a young woman being plagued by a demon in a mirror. It goes wrong and the unborn baby is affected and stillborn... for about a minute... before being brought back to life by the power of prayer and, of course, she grows up to be the child we are familiar with, at different ages, in the previous films in the franchise. We then jump 20 years to the main timeline of the film, where Ed is still suffering from the dodgy heart condition that plagued him during The Conjuring - The Devil Made Me Do It (reviewed here) and so the couple, while still giving lectures, have retired from helping people with their ‘special set of skills’. However, after the mirror from the opening of the movie turns up in another state and the demon within starts terrorising another family, it’s not too long before, due to their daughter finding herself pulled to the house where the evil now dwells, The Warrens are back on the case. 

Okay, so this is the usual melange of clichéd formula including camera misdirection, almost subconscious levels of sound design, lurking dread and jump scares but, as I’ve mentioned before in regards to these films, the people involved in these really know how to do these things well and it works in spades in this one. This is touted as a last hurrah for the main characters and, although I said I’m not ruling out another one, the ending of this movie very much goes out of its way to bring some closure to the lives of Ed and Lorraine Warren, so if they do decide not to do another one, this has an appropriate ending as a jumping off point, at least. 

And, like I said, I really loved this one. I didn’t find the criticisms I’ve heard against the film hold up in any way and I was generally impressed with it. The only two movies in this whole franchise I’d not really got on with are the previous movie, The Devil Made Me Do It and the first of the three Annabelle spin offs. This one, I’m glad to say, is certainly a lot better than those two at any rate and so I was pretty happy throughout the screening. And I don’t want to say too much else about The Conjuring - Last Rites because I dont want to spoil anything so, other than to say it had some nice cameos at the end and an excellent score by Benjamin Wallfisch (which, of course, hasn’t had a proper CD release at time of writing, so I guess I won’t be able to listen to the score away from the movie again), I'll leave it there. So... yeah... I thought this one was a pretty decent demonic entity movie and I’ll definitely be in line for the Blu Ray when it gets a release.

Deliver Us from Evil: True Cases of Haunted Houses and Demonic Attacks

Spirit Level

Deliver Us from Evil: True Cases of Haunted Houses and Demonic Attacks
by J.F. Sawyer, Ed & Lorraine Warren
Omnimedia Publishing LLC
ISBN: 978-1935856856

Last year I saw a truly great horror movie at the cinema called The Conjuring (reviewed here). The film was based on a case investigated by a husband and wife team of “ghost hunters/demonologists” called Ed and Lorraine, who were played in the film by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. The film made an impression on me, not just because the film was exceptionally well executed in terms of scariness, acting, shot design, editing and musical score... but also because all of the human characters in the movie were just such nice people who you would like to hang out with.

Of course, this made me curious to learn more about the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren... so I sought out this book.

My first impressions of the book were that it was not very well bound and seemed quite thin. It is told, not by The Warrens but they do have a voice... as their friend, who used to go out on some of their cases with them, uses their recollections of the cases and presumably uses a lot of their words in his descriptions of them.

The chapters are quite short and each chapter details a different case... the book finishing with a case which was not investigated by The Warrens at the time it happened (in the 1940s) but with an account based on Ed Warren’s descriptions of it through his being one of the few people allowed by the church to have access to the historical records of the case case in question. That case is, for people who are interested, the one which inspired the famous book and movie called The Exorcist.

Now I was not all that sure whether I should give this book a good review or a bad review because, quite frankly, the stories are told matter of factly, but with also a small thread of poetic expression running through some of the descriptions which maybe make it seem a little naive at times. At the end of the day, though, I have to acknowledge that some of the small stories in here did give me a little chill and, if I’m being extra honest... did scare me a fair bit, actually. Which is interesting because, although certain horror films can scare me quite a lot, The Conjuring being one of them, it’s rare for me to be spooked by the content of a book. Maybe it’s the idea, controversial or not, that these events are purported to have actually happened which put the extra cold touch of fear down my spine as I was reading. I’m not sure but, ultimately, I have to give credit where credit is due and say that the writer certainly did his job if scaring me was the object.

However, despite being suitably scarified, one of the issues I had of it is that I didn’t get too much impression of who The Warren’s were and if this stuff actually happened like they said. I tend to be cynical sometimes and I can’t help that... even though I totally believe in the supernatural as I have known too many “converted cynics” who have had brushes with the ghostly realm to remain unconvinced. About the only thing I did get from the accounts here, and it’s something which was touched on in the movie, is the The Warrens are quite religious... which is unsurprising, I guess, if you’re working in the devil’s back yard.

Ultimately, I see this book as a kind of taster to explore these people and some of the cases they have worked on further. So, in a way, I guess the book does it’s job. Of course, the fact that I’m curious enough to explore this stuff further is something which moves me a step closer to the world beyond the one we can physically see, according to Ed Warren, and so I’m maybe thinking it might be an equally good idea to stay away from any further exploration, in case I set myself up psychologically to become a victim of such unearthly shenanigans. If I do find another tome which will give me anymore insight into the world The Warrens used to live in (Ed passed away in 2006) then I’ll surely let you know on a future review on this blog. Whatever I do though, if there’s one clear message I took from this book it was this... No matter how many times either family members during my childhood have told me not to... or how many horror movies have demonstrated the activity as a decision of folly, I should surely, never... ever... play with Ouija boards.

The Conjuring

Conjurlingus

The Conjuring
2013 USA
Directed by James Wan
Playing at cinemas now.

Hmmm.

You know, back in the 1970s and 1980s, I used to claim that there were only, maybe, between five and ten decent horror movies ever made. Now, what I meant by that is actually, between five and ten “scary” horror movies ever made. Clearly, for example, The Bride Of Frankenstein is probably going to be on most people’s top ten horror movies but it’s probably not in any way an effective horror movie in terms of scaring anyone... unless that person is two or three years old maybe. So for when I was making that claim... I stick to my guns. There are lots of great horror films, such as Suspiria, Zombie Flesh Eaters, Night Of The Living Dead etc... but none of these movies are in any way scary.

Nowadays, however, I’d have to say my opinion has been forced to change given the influx of really well made horror films coming out in the last ten to fifteen years. Loads of films where the creeping and subtle terror, has started to make a come back in a more than competent manner. We have films that get the job done right, now, like The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, The Last Exorcism (reviewed here), Paranormal Activity 2 (reviewed here) and Paranormal Activity 3 (reviewed here) and, you know, The Blair Witch Project. Even just the last couple of years there’s been a steady increase of freshly made horrors which actually don’t fail to scare and I can probably add a lot to the likes of my original list from way back when... which included stuff like The Haunting (1963 version), The Fog (1980 version), The Shining and, tentatively, The Exorcist (The Version We’ve Already Seen). I think it’s fair to say that during the last decade or two, my list has probably doubled.

The reason I’m dredging up this stuff now is actually by way of an apology. You see, The Conjuring is actually something of a great and powerfully scary movie. That being said, though, I’ve reviewed a fair few effectively scary new movies over the past three years and so, if what I say here about this movie sounds like something of a bit of a repeat review of any of the other of the better horror movies I’ve reviewed on this blog, well I apologise.

Of course, that makes this review no less valid and the movie in question no less great.

The films is a dramatisation of the real life events of a demonic possession which plagued the Perron family back in the early seventies and the people who helped them, the real life husband and wife team of psychic investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (portrayed brilliantly in this movie by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) who, among others, investigated one case which is known to modern cinema audiences as The Amityville Horror. It’s also a very effective “scare the pants off you” movie which is not to be missed by fans of the supernatural and the unknown.

Three things distinguish this movie a little more than a lot of the other horror movies doing the rounds the past few years... the first being, of course, that we have a real life couple of protagonists who have investigated hundreds of cases which could be prepped for a sequel if this movie is successful (they are and it is, by the way... I’m expecting to see another one in a couple of years and I look forward to it greatly). So genre characters who can keep on running in a number of movies, thus filling a void left when the two movies made as extensions of the TV show The X Files turned out to be... well... a bit lame.

Another thing which make this a little different is that it’s set in a period around about 1971 (until 1973 in real life, is my understanding of events) and although there are a lot of accidental anachronisms on show for the time portrayed here, the movie generally manages to capture the spirit of this period without resorting to too much postmodernistic nostalgia... it’s not a movie about the past, in other words, it is just set in the past and this is not a ‘feature’ of the story... it is just another fact.

The other element which sets it apart is its confidence in breaking the narrative flow to put in little diversions and emphasise points with a bit of visual punctuation, so to speak, not unlike a 1960s Godard movie... although with a completely different motive. It’s also to the credit of the director in question that this never really breaks the spell of the film... merely serves to enhance little points at key moments. Also, it’s not done all over the place either. It’s a tool which is used on the odd occasion and which doesn’t outstay its welcome.

A couple of “mini past cases” from  The Warrens are highlighted, for example, one of which... involving the much loved horror film staple of “a creepy doll”... is even used to clarify certain events pertaining to the case The Warrens are working on in the main timeline of the movie in no uncertain terms (you’ll know it when you see it... Ed and Lorraine Warren are not the only people besides their assistants and The Perron Family who are placed in demonic peril... but I really don’t want to spoil it for you so I’ll say nothing of this here).

And now we come to the stuff which is possibly going to sound a bit like one or two of my other reviews... but I write this because it’s the truth. The film-makers obviously know horror movies inside out and, though I had my reservations about the last 20 minutes or so of this director’s Insidious (which turned me off that whole movie, to a certain extent), this guy certainly knows how to run almost every horror cliché in the book throughout the film’s, never overlong, running time and still get away with it. That is to say, he has honed his feel for horror cinema to the point where, even though you are expecting quite a lot of what goes down in some of the key scare sequences, they are always so beautifully and effectively executed that you really can’t find fault with them. Indeed, you don’t have time to find fault because the sequences in question, coming ready or not, will make you jump out of your skin at some points. So if you are already a jumpy person... consider yourself warned.

Also, the director is not one of these people who is inclined to keep the camera moving all over the place at high speed to make it look like it’s moving along at breakneck place but, that being said, he does tend to have a very slow shifting field of vision which gives the feeling of static master shots when, in fact, they didn’t seem to be. Very slow takes and edits seems to be the order of the day here (thank goodness) and the slight sense of motion inherent in every 24 frames of film is really hypnotic and helps to draw you into that all important atmosphere of terror the crew is trying hard to create here.

And it works really well. Right down to Joseph Bishara’s original score which really supports the film well and which I have to wait a month to arrive on CD because, for some reason I can’t fathom, it’s only available from US Amazon and not the UK Amazon. Go figure. So I can’t tell you as yet what it’s like as a stand alone listen but it’s really effective in the movie and I’m sure it will scare me loads when I finally get around to listening to it. Certainly goes for a mood of terror and unease and gets it right all the way.

The one thing this movie really has going for it though, right throughout the entire movie, is that all the human characters (and by that I mean, people who aren’t dead and are ghostly or demonic spirits) are completely likeable characters who you really wouldn’t mind hanging around with at a pub and who really promote a certain, solid set of loving family values. And of course, this makes the spiritual and deadly attacks on them even more frightening. You care about all of these characters... so you’re invested in them right from the outset.

And of course, the actors portraying all of these people are just great in their roles. There’s honestly not a bad turn among them. These are skilled craftsmen and craftswomen who, along with the rest of the crew, have come together to make a horror movie which will literally, for want of a more eloquent term, “scare you up good”. And it’s to their credit that, in The Conjuring, they do just that. If you call yourself a fan of horror cinema then, although it might all seem a little overfamiliar perhaps, you really ought to go and see this movie and have some kind of opinion of it... good or bad. I had a lot of fun with this one... and so did the packed out audience I saw it with, if the jumps and screams are anything to go by.