Film conjures sadness -but not for the reason you think

The Conjuring: Last Rites brings Ed and Lorraine's story to a close – in an eerily cosy fashion

- Beatrice Loayza

When The Conjuring came out in 2013, director James Wan brought back the kind of old-school haunted house thrills that audiences had been missing over the previous decade, when found-footage horror (Paranormal Activity) and torture movies (Saw) were all the rage.

The film was a success at the box office — and it was also surprisingly well-done, relying on inventive sound design and patient, fluid camerawork that always got you when you least expected it. Set in the 1970s (just like The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror), its main characters, fictionalised versions of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, were sort of wacky. But actors Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga played them convincingly straight, balancing out the film’s more cartoonish elements with an unexpected gravitas and earthy realism.