“Epic Christian Battle Against Demonic Oppression”
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What You Need To Know:
THE CONJURING: LAST RITES tells a rather epic, scary story about fighting a demon. It has a strong Christian, biblical, pro-family worldview. The Warrens use prayer and references to the Holy Trinity, Jesus and the Bible to fight the scary demon. The movie also extols family, marriage and helping people. However, THE CONJURING: LAST RITES has some brief foul language, including three strong obscenities and profanities. It also has many scary scenes, with some involving bloody violence. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises strong or extreme caution.
Content:
Very strong Christian, biblical, pro-family worldview from a Roman Catholic perspective (but nothing seriously controversial regarding the differences with Protestant and Eastern Orthodox doctrine), with a priest leading a confirmation/baptism service, a priest leading a funeral, a priest at a wedding ceremony, and a priest helps two lay Catholics and a family exorcise/defeat demons, about the two lay Catholics who have a career helping people fight demonic oppression, and who are attacked by a demon early in their career dealing with the occult and years later must help another family and their daughter who are being attacked by the same demon, with many positive Christian references to the Holy Trinity, Jesus and the Bible, and movie extols the family, marriage, helping other people in need (even if one must fight scary demonic forces), and other biblical values and virtues;
Three obscenities (including one “f” word), upset teenager uses two strong profanities mentioning Jesus in one scene (slightly mumbled), and seven light exclamatory profanities during scary encounters with demonic forces (some seem to be appeals to God also);
Lots of scary violence includes visions of bloody murders from the past about an ax murderer, the killer with the ax bludgeons an elderly woman’s head in a vision from the past and chases another character in the present, blood starts flowing from a kitchen sink, an overhead light fixture in a kitchen falls and barely misses a teenage girl, another teenage girl starts vomiting and the vomit turns to blood, she looks at the blood and finds shards of glass (she and her teenage sister had placed a floor-length mirror infested by a demon in the trash, and the incident occurs just when the garbage truck smashes the mirror to pieces), the demon in the mirror moves the mirror to press against a characters neck and try to choke him to death, demon tosses two people down stairs twice, two images of men who have hanged themselves, etc.;
No sex;
No nudity;
No alcohol use;
No smoking or drugs; and,
Man shirks his duty and gives his daughter’s fiancé a hard time, but he comes around in the end.
More Detail:
The movie begins in 1964. A young Ed Warren and his pregnant wife, Lorraine, who has visions, visit an old antique shop to help a young woman, who discovered that her father had hanged himself. The woman tells them that, since her father died, she feels like someone’s watching her. Before her father hanged himself, she says, he told her that he felt like someone was following him.
Ed and Lorraine visit the shop’s dark back room. Lorraine checks out the back while Ed checks out the front. In the back, Lorriane comes upon a strange old floor-length mirror set in a wooden frame with faces of children carved at the top. She gets some strange vibes from the mirror and touches it. Suddenly, the mirror cracks, and Lorraine experiences intense pain. She thinks something’s wrong with her baby.
Ed and Lorrane run from the shop, and Ed frantically drives Lorraine to the hospital while a thunderstorm rages. In the delivery room, the doctor discovers that the umbilical cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck. He frees the baby, but the baby appears to have died when they place her in the little hospital crib. Lorraine has been praying desperately. She demands that they bring the baby to her. They place the baby on her chest, and Lorraine continues praying. Suddenly, the baby starts breathing and seems perfectly fine and healthy.
A montage shows the Warrens taking care of their new daughter, Judy, as she grows up. Everything seems normal, but every once in a while, Judy suddenly gets frightened. Lorraine helps Judy calm herself and overcome her fears by giving her a nursery rhyme about a locket in a pocket. At the same time, Lorraine carries a locket with Judy’s picture in it. Their house is filled with Christian artifacts and crosses. Also, however, the Warrens have set aside a room full of artifacts and objects from all their paranormal cases and demonic encounters. They keep the objects in the locked room because, even though they’ve been “exorcised,” the objects tend to attract demonic forces if left to roam the world. Or, so Ed, the husband, says.
By 1986, the Warrens have stopped handling exorcism cases on the advice of Ed’s doctor. Ed has had a heart attack, and his doctor thinks he won’t survive another one. So, the Warrens only consult with other people from afar while Ed and Lorraine travel the lecture circuit.
However, by 1986, the first GHOSTBUSTERS comedy movie has been released. Consequently, the Warrens are finding it hard to be taken seriously any longer.
As the Warrens prepare for Ed’s birthday, a Catholic family in West Pittston, Penn., starts having a ghostly, demonic encounter of their own.
Jack and Janet Smurl live with their four daughters, two young twin girls and two teenagers, Heather and Dawn, in a duplex. The other half of the duplex is occupied by Grandpa and Grandma. Whenever the family gathers for dinner, Grandpa can be seen perched in front of the TV set.
The family attends 16-year-old Heather’s Confirmation Day at their church. At home, the grandparents give Heather a Confirmation present. Their gift just happens to be the full-length mirror that Lorraine encountered in the first scene. As the family sits down to dinner, the ceiling light suddenly falls down, missing Heather by inches.
Of course, more strange things start happening. One of the twins’ talking dolls is found crawling and talking in front of the mirror. Then, the long telephone cord in the kitchen tries to drag the mother across the room.
Meanwhile, at the Warrens, Judy’s boyfriend, Tony, proposes to Judy. Judy’s mother, Lorraine, is all for the match, but Ed, playing the practical father, is more skeptical. Ed and Lorraine receive a visit from their priest friend, Father Gordon, who’s helped them with several cases. He tries to interest them in the Smurl family’s case, but Ed, mindful of Lorraine’s concerns about his health, declines.
However, a tragedy spurs Judy to action. She travels to Pennsylvania to help the Smurls, and Ed, Lorraine and her fiancé, Tony, follow.
THE CONJURING: LAST RITES tells an epic and an intimate story. On the one hand, the movie depicts an epic struggle with a demon who’s been active across decades. On the other hand, it tells an intimate story about two families. The epic struggle with the demon has threatened the unity of the Smurl family. Conversely, the struggle with the demon seems to bring the Warren family together. That’s because it soon shows Ed and Lorraine that the demon is still after their child, Judy. Can they save their precious daughter?
Like the other CONJURING movies about the Warrens, THE CONJURING: LAST RITES has a strong Christian, biblical, pro-family worldview. The Warrens use prayer and references to the Holy Trinity, Jesus and the Bible to fight the scary demon the movie depicts. The movie also extols family, marriage and helping people. In fact, Judy at one point counsels her father that it’s their Christian duty to help people, even if it means putting themselves at risk. This is a really strong, positive message for anyone, not just Christians.
That said, THE CONJURING: LAST RITES contains brief foul language, including one muffled “f” word and two strong but muffled profanities. It also has many scary scenes, including a scene that includes a scary bloody vision of an ax murderer killing a victim. THE CONJURING: LAST RITES contends that the demon uses fear to gain power over the human victims its attacking. MOVIEGUIDE® advises strong or extreme caution for older teenagers and adults.
The CONJURING movies are loosely based on the alleged exorcism activities of a real life couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren. The movies condense and sensationalize the confrontations with the demonic forces. For example, the real-life Smurls alleged that their house was infested by a demon from 1974 to 1989, but LAST RITES condenses the alleged infestation to a shorter period in 1986. The Warrens did show up in 1986 to help and recommended an exorcist. They also claimed there were three other spirits in the house. Also, however, other priests visited the house to check it out and cleanse it. Not everyone believed the Smurls at the time, but other people who visited the house over the years reported some strange things happening there. Despite that, many skeptics believe the Warrens were frauds. Reportedly, though, they never charged the people who asked for their help, but instead made money by writing books, lecturing and making movie deals.
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