Title: The Conjuring Last Rites
Distributor: Warner Bros
Release date: September 5, 2025
Director: Michael Chaves
Screenwriters: Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick
Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy, Steve Coulter, Rebecca Calder, Elliott Cowan, Kíla Lord Cassidy, Beau Gadsdon, John Brotherton, Shannon Kook
Rating: R
Running time: 2 hr 15 mins
Review: 3/5
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Table of Contents
The Conjuring Last Rites Movie Review
Director James Wan launched what would become unintentionally a favorite horror film franchise of mine with 2013’s The Conjuring. The spin-off movies have been a bit of a mixed bag, but the three legitimate Conjuring movies have managed to establish a genuinely creepy atmosphere which is constructed around two very strong and truly likeable lead characters, both of whom are delightfully played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson.
The Conjuring Movies Are Based on Real Life
The Conjuring movies are based on the case files of actual-life paranormal researchers and demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren and their attempts to assist families in distress due to supernatural powers of evil. This leads to the fourth installment that has been promoted as the one that closed the case, Last Rites, It certainly seems like that ending and in any case, the series closes with another strong entry.
When it promotes the latest installment of its profitable franchise, The Conjuring 3, as the last adventure of its two founding heroes, married parapsychologist Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson), it is difficult to believe that this is a serious franchise. At least the film realizes our cynicism and proposes one possible way to continue without apparently reneging on its promise: this is a stealth version of a so-called legacy film, establishing new characters, to whom the narrative torch can be passed, the supernaturally sensitive daughter of the respected family Judy (Mia Tomlinson) and her new love interest Tony Spera (Ben Hardy), who are meeting the family for the first time when the story opens.
They each get sucked into the investigation of a haunting in industrial Pennsylvania that included several possessions of objects, several hauntings and (in this fictional telling, at least) a relationship to the early days of the couple.
James Wan’s Creation of Conjuring World
The movie world created by James Wan started with a terrifying bang a decade ago and cemented its place at the top of the horror franchises in its generation. And, finally, the saga of the Ed and Lorraine Warren couple ends with the much-anticipated The Conjuring: Last Rites. Director Michael Chaves, who has already worked on the franchise with two movies (The Curse of La Llorona and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It) tries to pay a tribute to the franchise, but he also wants to show a heartfelt and personal ending to the two main characters.
The movie works in parts, especially in the core performances, but in the end, it appears to be more of a serviceable sequel than a fitting conclusion itself, leaving the impression of a missed opportunity.
The strongest point of this film, as usual, is the actors in the lead. Playing Ed and Lorraine Warren, possibly the last time, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are as engaging as ever. Their battered chemistry does give the film a feeling that it is not empty.
The Conjuring Movies Cast & Performance
Ed by Wilson is a very sturdy looking man who applies a lot of will, but obviously feels exhausted due to his unending faith and love towards his wife. He bears the burden of ten years war with the supernatural, and every weary look or shielding touch is deserved. It is the performance of Vera Farmiga as Lorraine, though, that is really dazzling. In the story, Last Rites, her remarkable gift has turned out to be a nearly intolerable burden.
Her spiritual experiences are no longer a frightening vision; they are exhausting (both physically and mentally). The most enjoyable scenes in the movie are the psychic explorations of Lorraine, filmed with dizzying confusion, as she tries to keep her sanity intact against the inundation of pure evil.
How The Conjuring Franchise Got Success?
The horror aspects which are the keystone of the franchises success are also not a silver lining. The sound design of the film is extraordinary; each creak of the old house, each chilling sigh, and each crash in the distance contribute to a sense of unease. The design of production is also great as the old church and the room where the Warrens keep their artifacts feels truly threatening. The rhythm, however, tends to be disjointed. Much of the atmospheric tension that made the original film so terrifying is lacking. Rather, Last Rites participates significantly in the cliche jump scares and loud, abrupt bursts of horror.
Although some of these scenes work, they do not give you that permeating fear that is pure horror. The demon has the visual effects that are well-rendered, but they seem overused and neither have the effect after they appear a few times.
The movie starts the night Judy is born, in 1964, with a young Ed and Lorraine (Orion Smith and Madison Lawlor respectively) pulling their way out of a potential exorcism of some bizarre oversized mirror, rushing to the hospital and resuscitating a dead Judy with the force of prayer. The scene brings the harsh potential that their daughter could have been possibly cursed, or worse yet Lorraine could have possibly sold out on Judy and sold her soul to the devil in order to live long.
The Conjuring: Last Rites Storyline
Throughout much of the movie, that seductive concept forms the basis of the central storyline like a time bomb. In far more successful and touching a manner than anything he has produced to date in the franchise, director Michael Chaves constructs a tightly knotted tension using effective foreshadowing and several exquisitely complicated Rube Goldberg machines. Last Rites is inspired by the alleged Cursing of the Smurl family home in West Pittston, PA, 1974-89, which led to a media frenzy and a book which Warrens co-authored. The couple is also ready to accept Judy’s fiancee Tony (Ben Hardy) in the family as they explore the potential acquisition.
As with any other Conjuring movie, the specifics of the why do not hold as much weight as the mechanics of the haunting itself, and Chaves and his crew forego the investigatory detective element that bogged down The Devil Made Me Do It in favor of a sequence of sincerely creepy set pieces. They also significantly connect the experience of the Warren himself with that of the Smurl family, which makes this chapter feel much more personal, and, of course, devastating, than the preceding chapters have provided.
Act 3 comes across as a list of franchise elements, specifically in the finale. The now obligatory exorcism scene, though being characteristic of the series, is not as raw and desperate as other films. The final battle against the creature resembles rather a theatrical performance than a battle to claim souls. It ends with a resolution, which although offering closure, leaves much to be desired in the way of emotional payoff because of the lack of plot development.
Worst Thing in The Conjuring: Last Rites Movie
The worst thing about the film is that it does not really offer any innovation. It is trying to be on the safe side and chooses to give what is expected instead of risking something new and bold. Because of this, it does not have the same long-lasting, bone-chilling effect as the best entries of the series do.
With its admirably serious turn, Last Rites easily wins the prize of the wholesomest chapter of the lot, its insistence on God and faith bordering on religious propaganda. The strategy is, however, certainly effective, and the climax is frightening as well as touching. Many of the most terrifying scenes of the film, not always so with The Conjuring, are linked to the emotional concerns of the characters in a way that is seamless.
Scenes in The Conjuring: Last Rites
One of the most stunning fright scenes in the franchise is when Judy is haunted by some ghostly presence as she puts on wedding dresses before an infinity mirror and just say that the franchise has another stunningly jarring scene involving a recurring character later on that is a masterful manipulation.
These all lead to one big question that has been the center of all 10 movies in the extended universe: Is it better to tune out the ghosts of the past with raw brute strength or to turn and face them without fear? It is a question that, to Ed, to Lorraine and possibly most of all to Judy, is destined to dog them either into the next phase of existence, or through the false image before the mirror, into the snare of the undiscovered country.
Final Verdict About This Movie
It is not one of the great “Conjuring” films all time in the sense of the supernatural aspects it is not until the middle of the story that Ed and Lorraine even enter the haunted space of this film But when they do, they are in.
The denouement of Last Rites is also as tense and unsettling as you would want it to be, but it is warm and inspiring, because where many films tend to peddle the notion that families are stronger when they all pull together, this film has no doubts about it, and it sells that notion with the skill and emotion which it can muster.
