Why THE CONJURING: LAST RITES Director Cut The Humor From Original Opening Scene
By this point in the now 12-year-old Conjuring Universe, director Michael Chaves has become as much of a fixture as James Wan. After making his feature debut with 2019’s tangentially connected The Curse of La Llorona, he took the helm of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II, and now The Conjuring: Last Rites. Opening September 5 from New Line Cinema/Warner Bros., it concludes the fact-based saga of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, focusing on one of their best-known cases.
In 1986, the Warrens traveled to West Pittston, PA, where the Smurl family claimed to have suffered supernatural incidents and attacks for over a year. Their case attracted considerable press attention, and the Smurls and the Warrens later co-wrote a book about it with Robert Curran titled The Haunted, which was turned into a 1991 TV movie directed by Robert Mandel (F/X). The Conjuring: Last Rites ties the Smurls’ ordeal in more closely with the lives of Ed and Lorraine (returning stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), as well as their now grown daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson). Shot in Britain, Last Rites has some of the franchise’s most gruesome scenes, and Chaves reveals that a key portion of it is now more intense than originally conceived…
How involved were you with the screenwriting process on Last Rites?
It started with an absolutely amazing script by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who has written a lot of stuff and has been with the series for a long time; he wrote The Conjuring 2, The Devil Made Me Do It, and this one. So much of the emotional core of the movie, especially the ending, is his creation. He poured his heart into it, and we did not touch a word of that ending; he did such a great job on that. He wasn’t available to do rewrites, so we brought in Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing [The Autopsy of Jane Doe], who I’d worked with on The Nun II, and are two terrific writers, and we took it a little further.
Probably the biggest thing I wanted to change was the opening of the film. The one in that first draft was actually a very different sequence, and it set a very different tone. It was actually a humorous scene where the Warrens have been brought in by a mother who’s concerned about her son, it’s the ’80s, they’re investigating his room, and they find a book. You think it’s going to be some kind of occult or demonic witchcraft book, and it turns out to be Dungeons & Dragons. It was kind of a joke, but it spoke to the times, and there was a lot of charm to it, but what I wanted to do at the beginning of Last Rites was really set the stakes. Establish that we’re not pulling any punches, and there weren’t going to be any jokes to open it up. So I came into the studio and pitched the new opening, and everybody was excited and on board with that. That was one of the biggest things we implemented in the rewrites.
It’s always an evolving process, and to me movies are great team sports. Everybody in front of the camera and behind the camera, we’re all telling the story together. Patrick and Vera especially were so involved as we were going through and developing the script.
Last Rites is a little more graphically violent than the previous Conjurings. Were you aiming to go out with a bang with this last entry?
Yeah. The first film is very scary yet not classically violent, but with Last Rites, there were a couple of factors: One, I feel like horror has had such a great run recently, it’s going through a renaissance, and the fans want more visceral intensity in their films. That was one factor that went into it, and New Line was great about that; we make these movies for fans, so we always have those conversations with them. It’s also something that kind of speaks to the times, to the 1980s. This movie is set in 1986. The first film is set in 1971 and is very much a love letter to ’70s horror and that atmospheric terror. We wanted to honor and keep that spirit going with Last Rites, and we wanted to show some respect to the horror of the ’80s.
So there are definitely…not overt references, but subtle nods to what you see in The Shining or A Nightmare on Elm Street. We even shot with these great vintage Panavision C Series anamorphic lenses, which they used to shoot Poltergeist, Alien and all these classic horror movies.
Was it a challenge staying true to the Smurls’ story while bringing in those specific horror elements you wanted to add?
It was such a balancing act. But from the first script David wrote, there was already a great balance. It was hard at times to wrangle it, but we brought in the Smurl sisters, who were instrumental, at first working with David but then also with us as we were developing the script. So much of the story is based on the real events and things that actually happened to them, but it was also important to tell the Warrens’ story, and bring a conclusion to the Conjuring series. We were always trying to balance those elements. I can say that through all these movies, we always start with the bedrock of the true case; we’re always jumping off that.
What led you to shoot this Pennsylvania-set story in Britain?
The weather [laughs]. No, we shot in England, honestly, because that’s kind of the economics of the industry right now. So much production has, unfortunately, because of tax rebates, moved into places like England, which is not your natural assumption of where to shoot for Pennsylvania. Having said that, it was one of the best shooting experiences I’ve ever had. Working with the British crew was incredible. The majority of our cast, outside of our returning players, was English, and honestly, the best people. They had such a wonderful spirit. I realized, as I started working with them, that these were the crews who had done Star Wars, Harry Potter, all these great movies, and it was such a privilege working with them. They really made the job so easy. That neighborhood you see in the film was basically a recreation of the actual West Pittston neighborhood. We built as many houses as we could, and beyond that, we did a CG extension.
They always say never work with children or animals. You had both on this movie, and horror filmmaking is such a technical process, can you talk about the challenges of working with the kids and the dog on Last Rites?
[Laughs] It wasn’t too difficult. They do always say that, but I have to say the kids in Last Rites were amazing. We had such a great cast from top to bottom, and the secret to working with any actor is that you hire the right person. We were so lucky with the young ladies who played Carin and Shannon [Tilly Walker and Molly Cartwright]. In terms of the dog, it’s funny, I’ve worked with a lot of animals doing commercials, and we had some dogs on the third Conjuring, and that was actually a much bigger nightmare. This wasn’t as bad, I have to say.
Through all the films you’ve made in the Conjuring Universe, what’s the one moment you’re proudest of?
The moment I’m honestly proudest of is the opening scene of Last Rites. I think partly because it’s my baby. I pitched it and obviously it meant a lot to me. It’s very personal; whenever you have kids, it’s kind of a heartbreaking process; there are so many stages. I also just love that scene because it’s scary and intense in a way that we’ve never seen in the series. When you make these movies and create these scenes, they are the result of the contributions of so many people—the actors and all the other people who worked on them. My wife actually cast the two young actors featured in that scene, Madison [Lawlor] and Orion [Smith], who were incredible finds. I am so proud of that opening—that’s the one.
The Conjuring: Last Rites is in theaters September 5. For more, check out:
