"It feels fitting that The Conjuring became the biggest horror franchise of the superhero era. While these films offer their fair share of scares, their main appeal involves watching the good guys save the day, fictionalizing the real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren as selfless warriors in an eternal battle against evil. Masterminded by James Wan, the Conjuring formula borrows the general gist of The Exorcist, reducing the psychological tension and leaning into a kind of procedural format."
"Ed and Lorraine's loving, lovable marriage provides the emotional hook, and with Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga expected to leave the franchise after this movie, The Conjuring: Last Rites doubles down on the sentimentality of its predecessors. Set in 1986, Last Rites adapts another of the Warrens' high-profile cases: The haunting of the Smurl family, whose Pennsylvania home was reportedly tormented by supernatural events."
"Portrayed as an average working-class household, their lives are full of warm family dinners and noisy adolescent bickering. Then the grandparents inadvertently bring home a cursed mirror, inviting a plague of levitating dolls, ghostly apparitions, and bloody threats to the Smurl children's lives. As per the typical Conjuring formula, we know that the Warrens will eventually show up to exorcise this demonic presence."
James Wan's Conjuring films trade deep psychological dread for a procedural, Exorcist-inspired format that foregrounds the Warrens as heroic, sentimental figures. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga portray Ed and Lorraine Warren, whose loving marriage provides the franchise's emotional hook. The Conjuring: Last Rites is set in 1986 and adapts the Smurl family haunting, portraying the household as working-class and domestically warm before supernatural violence emerges. Grandparents bring home a cursed mirror that triggers levitating dolls, apparitions, and bloody threats to the children. The Warrens are older and retired after Ed's heart attack, slowing the film's momentum before they return to confront the demonic presence.
Read at Inverse
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