The Conjuring: Last Rites

There is too much happening to too many people to make any sort of a coherent narrative, so much so that the demon-fighting itself is crunched. Even so, the Warrens, who have boldly gone into so many haunted homes, deserved a better send-off than this.

Despite something of a false opening promise, Last Rites is appropriately terrifying, far more successful on a scare-by-scare basis than the second or third films and a really frothy return to the aesthetic pleasures of Wan's first Conjuring. In a series that is admirably earnest, Last Rites easily takes the cake as the most wholesome chapter of the bunch, its insistence on God and faith teetering on religious propaganda. But the approach is undoubtedly effective, with a climax that is as scary as it is emotionally resonant.