By Megha Pendyala
A huddle of priests camping outside of the movie theater blessing people before watching the new installment of The Conjuring bodes well for horror movie fans, especially as the Halloween season approaches.
I had high hopes when seeing the trailer for this movie, from the chilling phrase “based on a true story” flickering on screen to how it’s a story about the last case that Ed and Lorraine Warren took. However, I wasn’t expecting this dragging two-hour and 15-minute movie to have the climax of simply a mirror twirling in 3x speed and an overused cliche movie of how family unity solves everything (even paranormal demon entities who have a long-held grudge). Despite this, there were some good jump scares and unexpected moments that had me clutching the sides of my chair and peeking through my fingers.
More than its mediocre horror element, though, The Conjuring: Last Rites had a wholesome message of the importance of family and standing by one another when faced with adversity. It explores this theme through Ed, Lorraine, and their daughter Mia, who has been having more vivid visions of paranormal entities. We get introduced to a new character, Mia’s boyfriend turned fiancé named Tony, who was a funny and loveable character who had a devotion to Mia comparable to the great Lorraine and Ed’s love.
This movie had great acting, considering it’s the same main characters as the past Conjuring movies, giving it a comfortable feel, almost like reuniting with old friends when watching this movie. It will be a bittersweet movie for long-standing fans of The Conjuring because of their references to past cases and how it is the last movie in the series. However, its soundtrack was desperately lacking. Many jumpscares could’ve been made scarier with better use of suspenseful music or haunting beats. Some of the scares weren’t effective because of the silence that came before them, which made it less intimidating. The cinematography was also not as good as it could’ve been. There was nothing outstanding about the camera angles, lighting, or aesthetic of the movie.
Overall, I would give this film 2 flames out of 5 flames because it was a generic horror movie that didn’t have any impact on me as a viewer.