It is truly god awful. Bad directing, bad writing, bad editing and utterly incoherent. I knew I was in for a tough trip when an they recreate the iconic Exorcist poster art for some reason and then proceed to berate you with the loudest exorcism ever. It's what you would imagine a low-effort, early 00s edgy remake of The Exorcist would play out. The Conjuring: Way Too Long of a Subtitle isn't just the weakest Conjuring, but it is not even in the same ballpark as the first Annabelle, let along the actual Conjuring movies. The only entry I can say, with confidence, is worse is The Nun. Even the Conjurverse's bread and butter, jump scares, all fall completely flat and you will see them coming miles away. Annabelle lived and died by jump scares, but at least all of those landed effectively. I always thought the Conjurverse was a mixed bag, but I never thought the second worst of the entire shared universe would end up being a mainline entry. I'm not even trying to be a contrarian. I was all for a lesser-but-fun sequel, giving a new director a chance to flex his skills. This was worse than La Llorona. At least that mess had a sufficient scary spirit/entity. This has none of that. This has no real demon or supernatural entity. It's just SOME LADY trying to piss off her dad. Even the lovable Warrens only marginally improve this movie, and poor Patrick and Vera look insanely bored. The Warren characters will derp around on 3 different investigations that barely connect while having more pressing issues. The characters have no development. You will not care or even fully be aware of what's happening. It'a just a lot of loud nonsense that legitimizes ridiculous legal defenses like demonic possession. No, a real person was murdered. The whole thing is a technically and morally bankrupt garbage fire. If you must watch, do it on HBOmax and then watch something that isn't terrible immediately after. Don't go to a theater to see it, even if you're over the pandemic scare. Watch it in your living room so you don't disturb the other patrons when you laugh at the horrific writing, dialogue and complete lack of sense for the 50th time.
