Ghoul school: A friend from beyond in ‘The Conjuring: Last Rites’.
THE CONJURING: LAST RITES *** (135 minutes) MA
Our favourite spook investigators Lorraine & Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga & Patrick Wilson) are back for one final roll in the hay with the supernatural in The Conjuring: Last Rites, a pretty good, strongly atmospheric, if way overlong closing chapter that could have – perhaps should have – been called Demon Mirror.
That’s the piece of flea market furniture that lands in the working-class home of the Smurls, who cart the ugly thing in totally unaware that its three spooky wood-carved heads and ominous crack in the glass signal a cursed backstory in which evil spirits possess the item and wreak havoc on anyone holding the receipt.
Set in the 1980s it’s the usual fun and games with director Michael Chaves honouring the dimly-lit look and creepy feel of the franchise that, to its credit, has managed to pump out nine titles without boring us all to tears.
Though the jaunt isn’t really all that scary – only the uninitiated and those with ludilophobia (fear of toys – thank you, ChatGPT) will find frights in the otherworldly manifestations that run rampant amidst all the jump-cut cliches in the final reel – there are some welcome emotional elements as we venture into the Warren’s early life and learn how their daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) has special gifts she’d probably rather trade for a pair of leg warmers.
Times are also getting tough for Ed and his fragile ticker, with his GP advising him to avoid precisely the kind of stress chasing paranormal phenomena tends to induce.
The prolonged closing captions and credits are strewn with archival clips to remind us that Ed & Lorraine Warren were, indeed, real people who really believed in what they were doing and how their battles with the forces of evil dolls and furniture were fortified with their faith in God.
That said, the claims that the film is “based on real events” or “based on a true story” are a tad dubious.
This and other films in the franchise might well have been inspired by accounts and testimonies about what some people claim happened to them, but the personal conviction that the cause of such alleged supernatural nuisances hark from the Underworld doesn’t constitute proof.
The realm of paranormal study can be fascinating, especially when dealing with things that defy rational explanation – lucid dreaming being a prime example.
Still, while suggestions of the Great Beyond are tantalising and provide rich source material for entertainment (and the exaggerations therein), we still don’t have a shred of real evidence that any of it exists anywhere but in the minds of the people who experience it.
As such, films like this, though based on real people, shouldn’t be taken as anything but the entertaining larks that they are.
THE ROSES *** (105 minutes) MA
A likeable if admittedly mild remake of the savage Danny DeVito 1989 divorce comedy pits failed architect Theo Rose (Benedict Cumberbatch) against his chef wife Ivy (Olivia Colman), whose beachside restaurant booms after a shock review.
The leads generate an appreciable head of love-hate steam as director Jay Roach (Meet the Parents; Austin Powers) builds things slowly as the friction between the luvvies builds and the marriage crumbles into a swirl of spite and asset clutching.
Notable highlights include Theo’s online ordeal as his career collapses and punchy comic support from Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon as their close friends.
While sufficiently funny and sporting a satisfying final moment, the conflict between the two never reaches the viperous pitch we saw between Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in the original film, which has lost none of its sting. Check it out on Disney+.
SORRY, BABY *** (103 minutes) M
A slow-burn approach and a non-linear telling adds subtle punch to the long-term psychological impact of sexual assault in writer/director Eva Victor’s impressive, understated debut drama.
During what is meant to be a sedate visit from her college chum Lydie (Naomie Ackie), teacher Agnes (Victor) drops hints of something troubling from her recent past.
Through some skilful time-jumping it’s gradually revealed how supportive and seemingly decent professor Preston Decker (Louis Cencelmi) assaulted a younger Agnes at his house, then left the school.
Gruelling as it sounds, the film doesn’t play heavy as Victor explores how Agnes has processed the event, providing some fairly unsettling insights into the rationale of inaction, when the victim of a crime chooses to let it go rather than prosecute.
An intriguing little film and a festival darling at Cannes, Sundance and Seattle, there are wily dabs of humour and a supporting role from a feline with character-enhancing qualities.
FIGHT OR FLIGHT *1/2 (102 minutes) MA
How important it is in any action movie that involves the swinging about of chainsaws in an adversarial fashion for the audience to care about who is doing the swinging and who is being swung at.
That, unfortunately, is not the case in Fight or Flight, a chaotic comedy bloodbath of a film in which Josh Hartnett plays a drunken retired secret agent who is offered lots of money to locate who among the passengers on a plane is the elusive computer hacker known as The Ghost.
What starts off like a fun action lark quickly succumbs to the Tedium of Excess, a principle that dictates how too much of something, however loud or frenetically edited, can assume a rhythm that is positively soporific.
NOT ONLY FRED DAGG BUT ALSO JOHN CLARKE *** (103 minutes) M
From his daughter Lorin comes a loving and lovingly made profile of the late, great John Clarke, the satirist/writer/actor/comedian who wisely hopped over to Australia from New Zealand, where he had run out of audiences to conquer.
We get a good account of Clarke’s background and issues, including his career-denting drinking, with plenty of enthusiastic, colourful interviews from prominent figures (such as Ben Elton, Andrew Denton, Shaun Micallef) and longtime friends.
The only issue with the film is that so much time is spent on Fred Dagg – the farmer caricature that made Clarke a household name in NZ back in the 1970s – that the rest of Clarke’s achievements are skipped through. Some are even skipped over.
Given how good it was, The Games TV series receives surprisingly short shrift while other notable accomplishments – the Anzacs mini-series; his winning performance in the 2015 film A Month of Sundays – don’t get any mention at all. What a shame.
It’s impossible, of course, to cover everything in a life as crowded as Clarke’s in a mere 100 minutes, so we live in hope that following the film’s theatre run and inevitable airing on the ABC (which co-produced) we will be graced with the extended version Clarke’s brilliant career truly warrants.