Chaves style
Let’s get straight to the point: no, Conjuring 4 isn’t worse than Conjuring 3 or The Nun 2, and it isn’t even quite as rotten. From there to saying it’s successful, there’s a gulf, but it at least benefits from defect-free-to-a-less-catastrophic-degree compared to the prior Chaves installments.
Unreadable editing, counterproductive framings, jump scares routinely sabotaged by rhythm and over-cutting… These hallmarks of the director’s style are less pronounced, even nearly absent in Conjuring 4, and just for that, this final entry deserves a nod. Beware, that may well be the only one. Because while the film holds up on two legs, it must be admitted that it doesn’t quite know how to walk.
First of all, and we kind of expected it a bit, no fresh formula, no originality, nor any clever staging to shake up a model that, after four films and hundreds of copycats, is as tired as a cherry tomato left out in the sun on a hot afternoon. If every beat of the routine is known by heart, it would be forgivable if the movie at least did what audiences still show up for in such fare, namely to scare.
Or, whether through jump scares or other, (slightly) subtler methods, not a single shiver or moment of dread manages to grip the audience during the screening. The fault lies in the tired mechanisms, the nondescript staging, and the ambient goofiness, yes, but not only that. If the film misses so clearly, it’s for a simpler reason.
Lack of Demon Presence
Conjuring 4 actually suffers from a shortage of characters. Yes, the Warrens, their daughter and her partner are in the mix, but in front of them there’s no real victim and no real threat. Since the very first Conjuring, the formula has remained the same: a family is haunted by one or more entities, the Warrens arrive to save the day, the demon shows its ugly face, and the battle is waged with heavy doses of Our Father prayers to free the innocent from occult possession.
In both the first and second films of the saga, the prerequisites for fear were set because the innocent families were introduced and drawn with depth, each figure fleshed out, and the demon and the ghosts were developed not only in their look but in their backstories, with each entity being identified and charismatic. Here, the major threat is… a mirror, through which the demon commits its misdeeds.
But the demon itself, we barely understand its appearance, its origin, or its history. Sometimes it’s singular, sometimes it’s multiple, sometimes it’s reduced to the mirror it possesses, and sometimes it’s external. Ambiguities that aren’t backed by anything sturdier, by any worthy incarnation. We’re far from the witch in the original Conjuring, from Valak in the second installment, or even from Annabelle (which still finds a way to make a totally unjustified appearance in this installment, just to squeeze it in).
Innocent victims and malevolent entities are so sparsely present and so poorly defined that they carry no weight in the narrative, no emotional anchor, and are forgotten from one scene to the next as soon as the camera cuts (and that’s a shame, because the restaurant sequence, with the only interesting camera movement in the film and the blue hand casually resting on Judy’s shoulder, promised much better than this). Impossible, therefore, to engage the audience at all and, by extension, impossible to scare them.
Youth in the Spotlight?
Ultimately, the announced conclusion arrives: the Warrens are stepping away here. Yet, as the film—released just last week in the United States—already stands as the biggest global opening ever for a horror movie (and thus follows the blockbuster already achieved by The Nun 2), it’s hard to imagine the saga fully closing the door on potential sequels.
That’s why the true heroes of the film are far more Judy (a character who has worn a new face with every film and is here newly and honorably embodied by Mia Tomlinson) and her partner than our beloved Ed and Lorraine. By twisting the well-worn notion of “true events” that underpins the franchise, the new couple could become the face of future installments…
After all, the Conjuring saga has always been defined by the tender, fairly successful writing of its central couple (even if, at times, it veers into saccharine mush, and yes, we’re talking about you, Conjuring 3), a quality here still reasonably well-handled and effectively reflected in the young couple. But… does that justify devoting more films to them? Please, no. At the time of writing, there’s even talk of a new prequel, but is that really any better (cf The Nun)?
The idea stings all the more when you know that for anyone who pays even a modest amount of attention to the “true stories” behind these films, the real face of the Warrens is fairly well known. Crooks, opportunists, and manipulators (and certainly not mediums for a dime), the two “demonologists” have, today, little credibility with many people. Only a meek box-office winner at the end of Conjuring 4 tries to own up to the truth while concluding this saga of glorifying charlatanism on a hopeful note.
The box-office moment reminds us that the work of the real Warren remains “controversial,” but the couple at least managed to popularize paranormal research and the fight against demonic entities. Oh yes, popularizing a scam somehow redeems everything… In short, if Conjuring 4 adds nothing to the saga in terms of story, character, or chills, it isn’t the angle or the message that gives this installment any value. If anything, it’s only that it’s finally the last. Before the next one.
