“We don’t run from fights.”

Meant to be a send off for the Warrens, The Conjuring: Last Rites doesn’t exactly cast a spell or inject the audience with terror, settling instead for moody atmospherics and scares provided by haunting figures that are never really explained. The opening is effective though, showing us these characters as young adults nearly losing a child, setting up a battle between the love for their daughter and the demons they believe want to take her away. It all comes together conveniently, forcing the family to fight for their last rites.

The Warrens don’t speak about what happened that night. Now they’re older, offering lectures on demonology, laying low and no longer taking cases. They really don’t even want to offer help to the Smurl family, haunted in their crowded Pennsylvania home ever since an antique mirror was brought in as a Confirmation present. Strange things happen and three entities terrorize them. There’s nowhere for them to go, and so they turn to the media in hopes of catching Ed and Lorraine’s attention. Had it been set in the present, the family likely would’ve started a GoFundMe to afford a hotel. No such luck in the Conjuring Universe.

Judy Warren (Mia Tomlinson), haunted ever since she was a child, soothes herself with a rhyme Lorraine taught her. Bringing some levity to the film, Judy’s well-meaning boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy) pops the question, bringing a new member to aid during investigations. You’d think that this latest – and potentially final – spooky endeavor for the Warrens would be simple enough; just get the damn possessed mirror out of the house. But there’s something darker lingering, and it’s tied to the Warrens’ past, as if it was calling out to them, hunting down Judy.

The Conjuring: Last Rites is just as well made as any of the previous installments, even opting for less jump scares and more invoking a sense of dread possibly lurking around each and every corner. But in this movie, I never really understood who/what was haunting the family and the Warrens, or why it is even happening in the first place. And unfortunately like too many horror movies, so much of what’s going wrong could be mitigated by simply turning on the damn lights (this might be the darkest home I’ve ever seen on-screen) and not trying to extract a haunted mirror from a house during an evening thunderstorm. But that would be too easy for the Warrens.

“One thing that’s always the same is the fear.”

Rating: 2.5 out of 5