a few weeks ago, i went to see the movie the conjuring: last rites with various of my dearest friends and also wife, and i guess was so transported by what took place therein that it became completely impossible for me to write about it, and so i did not write about it, and so i missed my self-imposed deadline for three stars fine. i mean really, i’m not sure this is so egregious a crime. would you ask vasari to give his immediate unvarnished thoughts on the sistine chapel? would you ask matthew, mark, luke and john to crank out an on-the-spot review of the crucifixion? rumination on a work of real substance takes time, and space, and the application of one’s technical and artistic faculties, and i wouldn’t be doing due justice to what took place onscreen were i just to be like here are my thoughts, goodnight. and anyway i have novel edits due, and i’m not here for your convenience, but the vasari bit sounds good so i’m sticking with that.
i have wondered a little about how best to approach a movie which, to all intents and purposes, is not really a movie, so much as a state-sponsored recruitment drive for heterosexuality sandwiched between a series of low-stakes, doll-based “hauntings” and topped by a creepy iron-man’s-funeral style cast reunion, during which you are forced to confront the terrible injustice of the fact that someone as talented as lili taylor apparently had nothing else going on. as far as social politics, general ethos, originality and structured storytelling are concerned, the conjuring: last rites is less a movie than it is an advert for big league chew, which is not to say that i did not enjoy it, but only that it’s hard to find a place to begin.
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the conjuring 4 is not (i think) a movie that quite intends its subtext. the conjuring: last rites is (i think) a movie that knows subtext is a thing that exists, but only insofar as it knows that, say, belgium is a thing that exists, or ann widdecombe, or the concept of mens rea. what, i have to ask, did the conjuring: last rites really assume any sane audience would take away, for instance, from a script in which near-pathologically high-haired catholic ghost hunter lorraine warren repeatedly instructs her daughter judy to for god’s sake push down her urges. never mind that the urge in question is the urge to constantly be hallucinating ghost hands all over the place because of your inherited clairvoyance - the repeated framing of someone’s hysterically christian mother taking them by the shoulders and singing a childhood song in their face to shut out the bad thoughts and feelings and desires is frankly enough to get anyone thinking. i have had cause before now to describe the conjuring series as the most cheerfully homophobic set of movies i have ever personally enjoyed, and between the conjuring 3 suggesting that romantic love will always save you unless you a lesbian in which case you will stab each other to death and the conjuring 1 being like REAL MEN WILL USE THEIR EXTREMELY LARGE BODIES AND NOT TOOLS OR PERHAPS THE DOOR TO BREAK THROUGH WALLS TO GET AT THEIR POSSESSED WIVES, you can see where i’m getting this opinion. there is, in a sense, something so single-minded about the conjuring‘s dogged celebration of the power of straight love as to horseshoe right around to camp again, but even knowing this, there was still something so deranged about the judy-isn’t-gay-it’s-just-demons storyline as to stun even me. i honestly don’t know whether they know that they’re doing it, but they’re doing it, so let’s discuss
some things in the movie the conjuring 4 which are just really fucking gay, sorry
- when we open on ed and lorraine giving their usual talk on infestation, oppression, possession, only for the lights to go on to reveal that they are old now and only about six 1980s tenderqueers with piercings have come to their lecture, because the times-they-are-a-changing, and then some big legend is like do you guys like ghostbusters.
- when the warren family go to lunch and lorraine and judy spend fifteen minutes mutually hallucinating spectral female hands crawling all over each other, whilst ed completely ignores them both and complains that he can’t have lasagne.
- when judy brings her boyfriend tony to the family home and we discover he is made of meat and has no job and then ed challenges him to an extremely sweaty game of table tennis and everyone, like, watches and throws dollar bills and stuff? this scene culminates in tony accidentally on purpose proposing to judy and ed looking like he’s been told he can’t have lasagne again. lorraine, having already told her daughter twice to force down her urges, looks pleased.
- when ed warren is such a gigantic chad that the doctor is like try eating egg whites and he’s like egg whats.
- when judy tries a wedding dress on in preparation for her wedding to human coffee cup tony, only to discover that there is a hideous ghostly long-haired crone underneath her skirts, i guess fumbling around down there. this scene is not related to anything else that happens in the movie and nor is it referenced again.
- when the haunted mirror belonging to the haunted family that is actually the nominal locus of action in this movie even though no one cares about it very much and it’s impossible to tell who anyone is causes one member of the family to puke glass in an oddly cunty slay sort of way
- when a priest who i think we are supposed to remember from the previous movies gets killed by like, a hoover, i think? i don’t remember, i just remember a hoover featuring.
- when judy wanders off to the haunted house which is nominally the locus of action in this movie and everyone is like ugh, girls today, can’t just stay in the room with their boyfriend tony the claymation man, always wandering off.
- when annabelle the haunted doll turns up in the haunted house which is nominally the locus of action in this movie and we’re all like diva chill you have absolutely nothing to do with this, go home.
- when judy becomes “possessed” by a “demon” and is suddenly like no i hate my parents and boyfriend tony who is made of carpet and we’re all like ok sure
- when judy becomes “unpossessed” again by only via the medium of the magic mirror twirling around over and over again and then falling over like laganja estranja arriving on the mainstage and immediately faceplanting onto a trampoline
- when everyone who has ever featured in a conjuring movie comes to the wedding of judy and tony, except ron livingston, who one has to assume was like fuck you i sort of have a career, and everyone looks very happy about it, and no one looks at the camera with a meaning expression, but i mean, we all know, right???
idk anyway, maybe it’s just me.
giggled so consistently reading this that I think I began to annoy my wife. your thoughts on horror movies continue to be both delightfully silly and very compelling
The langanja estranga line made me cover my mouth and laugh loudly at work