Conjuring: Last Rites' director Michael Chaves talks about paranormal activity while shooting the final instalment
Michael Chaves says he walked away from The Conjuring: Last Rites not just as its director, but as someone who now believes in the supernatural.
American filmmaker Michael Chaves didn’t just direct The Conjuring: Last Rites—he lived through a haunting of his own while making it. The 40-year-old filmmaker, in a recent interview, recalled how the project turned him into a believer in the supernatural.
“When talking about making these movies, the question that always comes up is ‘Did anything spooky ever happen on set?’ And my answer now is ‘Yes,’” Chaves said. “My experiences on (the sets of) The Conjuring: Last Rites have made me a believer. That is because of two things, the first having talked extensively with the Smurls and the conviction they had in telling their story. They’re totally honest, reasonable, smart people, and this was something that was really a wound that they dealt with. It was a jarring, traumatic event. It resonated with me incredibly," he added.
But it's the second thing, that is sure to send some shivers down the spine.
“While shooting in England, I swear to God I was living in a haunted house. It was called The Old Vicarage—one of those places that doesn’t even have an address, just a name. It was in this lovely neighborhood. And though I usually would go for a small place, I had my family with me, so we wound up at The Old Vicarage. It was called that because vicars, when they came to town and were working at the church, would reside there. The place was probably a couple hundred years old,” Michael recalled.
The director went on to describe chilling moments in the house, from his daughter’s iPad photo that seemed to capture a shadowy priest to hearing two men’s voices upstairs when he was home alone. “Now, I’m scared, but I keep going. I search from one room to the next… and there is no one in that house—and the voices suddenly stop,” Chaves said.
“At first, I’m relieved, I think, ‘Well, at least I’m not getting robbed,’ because I’d have no clue how to deal with that. Then I realized that, I swear to God, those voices were there, and I was convinced it was a haunting. I know that something was there. I’m a total believer, and I apologize for any other interview where I might have been dismissive or just tossed off an answer. It happened to me,” he added.
His personal encounter sets the stage for The Conjuring: Last Rites, the final chapter of the blockbuster horror franchise inspired by real events. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson return as Ed and Lorraine Warren, facing a case that threatens not just their faith but their family itself. The film introduces Mia Tomlinson as Judy Warren and Ben Hardy as her boyfriend, pulling the next generation into the terrifying orbit of the Warrens’ legacy.
