"The Conjuring" films have their work cut out for them, considering a quick internet search shows, somehow, about half the population believes in the paranormal. I am firmly not in that camp, so smart people like me have to sit and watch make-believe in hopes of entertainment. And this fourth entry, subtitled "Last Rites," is as goofy as they come.
The film opens with Ed and Lorraine Warren, two real-life paranormal investigators, in an antique shop of sorts, after the owner is found dead by hanging. A pregnant Lorraine decides to investigate, hearing the voices that allegedly drove the old man to his suicide, stumbles upon a mirror, one with three faces carved into the wood at the top. She touches it, lots of loud noises are produced and she's induced. Now at the local hospital, doctors believe she has a miscarriage, but thanks to the power of prayer, their little baby girl takes her first breath. It's all very sweet until you realize this is a horror movie, and babies don't have the best track record in this territory.
Stars Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson (who's facial hair is not quite ready to commit to actual mutton chops) reprise their roles as the paranormal pairing, now since retired from a life of ghostbusting. And when their now-grown daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) returns home from, I dunno college I suppose, new boyfriend in tow named Tony (Ben Hardy), it all becomes very sitcom.
Simultaneously, we follow the Smurl family, a poor and of course religious family of eight living in Pennsylvania. Their daughter Heather (Kíla Lord Cassidy) is seen having her confirmation ceremony, which I'm assuming is something god-fearing people do to try and get on the invisible man's good-side, then thusly gifted the aforementioned mirror, and, I dunno, that ends up inviting demons in. Or ghosts. Or spirits. Or something, I paid attention, I truly did I swear.
The teenager suspects something bad about the mirror, bringing it to the trash the night ahead of trash day. The garbage men pick it up and their big truck smashes it, and then the demon fun begins. People float above their beds, freaky old woman hold toys and phone cords are yanked. (Oh did I forget to mention this takes place during the eighties?) You'd think this is when the Warren's would be called in, but then the runtime wouldn't be able to exceed two hours, but here we are.
But their cries to the local news do attract the attention of Father Gordon (Steve Coulter), a good friend of Ed and Lorraine, or so this fourth movie in a franchise says, but due to plot he ends up killing himself. And for some reason, Judy takes it upon herself to travel to PA and try and help. Or figure out what happens to Gordon. You know, what the police should be doing, but cops just keep back crowds in movies like these in the background.
So her parents and boyfriend-turned-fiance travel to the Smurl residence, and up until then, I hadn't actively disliked the flick all that much. But then characters lurk about in the dark when they shouldn't, alone in dimly lit rooms in a tiny house that homes eight people- and it happens constantly, and I had to keep my intense urge to scream at the screen contained. Lorraine just lumbers around looking concerned, and Ed and his sideburns speaks all doomy; it's all so self-indulgent.
And unfortunately, not all that scary. The same problem that plagued entry number three, that one quickly notices the pattern: someone goes somewhere they shouldn't, the music gets all tense then stops until a monster jumps out. When the film finds an interesting location for all this, sure, it can be fun. A scene in a dressing room is interesting and well done, but come on, another haunted house?
But yes, the plot revolves around a haunted mirror, which in itself isn't all that silly, but what is is when the furniture physically moves and attacks; it is so unbelievably stupid to see veteran actors like Wilson and Farmiga have to combat a hunk of wood. A satire maybe could have made it work, or some broad comedy even, but the filmmakers instead settled on the pretentious.
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