Publication Date: 09-08-2025

The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) review

Dir. Michael Chaves

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★

With Last Rites poised to be the final installment in the Conjuring Universe — the historic box office haul this weekend is going to make it tough for Warner Bros. to keep this cash cow dead — this franchise and all involved can celebrate ecstatically. There is not one bad Conjuring film in the bunch. All of the four are quality horror movies in their own ways, and Last Rites in particular doubles down on the pathos explored in the previous installment, The Devil Made Me Do It. It’s so beyond rare for a horror series to continue to stay sharp, 12 years and four movies later. Then again, most horror movies don’t have such laudable protagonists like Ed and Lorraine Warren as their pillars.

Do what you will with the Annabelle trilogy, the couple Nun movies, and whatever The Curse of La Llorona was. Without the Warrens, this series lacks teeth, and one could see director Michael Chaves — responsible for the lattermost film — and the respective writers wanted to steer these final two sequels in the direction of reminding us why the paranormal power couple was capable of beating the odds, in more ways than one. Last Rites further affirms the strength of Ed and Lorraine’s marriage, and gives us a fittingly emotional send-off for the two in conjunction with another story about an average family being gripped, shaken, and even bloodied by forces they can’t explain.

Marked as the “last case” the Warrens took before retreating into retirement (it wasn’t), the film finds the couple (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) trying to settle into another phase in their career. Ed’s health is touchy, and the two are now embarking on more speakings while publishing their decades of research. Then comes the curious case of the Smurl family — comprised of mother Janet (Rebecca Calder), father Jack (Elliot Cowan), their children, and extended family. Since gifting their daughter Heather (Kíla Lord Cassidy), a creepy antique mirror, the family has found their quiet, domestic life in Pennsylvania turned upside down by unexplainable acts, ranging from possession to abuse. After pitching the mirror, Heather projectile-vomits blood and shards of glass all over the kitchen. That prompts the call to the Warrens.

Also along for the investigation — which takes place in 1986 — is the Warrens’ daughter, Judy (Mia Tomlinson) and her fiancé Tony Spera (Ben Hardy). There’s also the stoic Father Gordon (Steve Coulter), who tries to guide the Smurls through this paranormal predicament long before the Warrens even set foot in the family home.

Similar to The Devil Made Me Do It, Last Rites works because it’s not always trying to scare you, something that the Conjuring Universe spinoffs seemingly didn’t understand. Chaves and writers (Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick) connect this case to the Warrens’ daughter, Judy, whose birth we see at the beginning of the film. Judy arrives into the world stillborn, but is revived by the power of Lorraine’s prayers. Whether that’s how the Warrens’ daughter came into the world, I don’t know. I don’t really need to know. The phrase “Based on a True Story” means about as much to me as saying a film is in color.

What I do know is that it gives the story the pathos necessary to make you recall the previous Conjuring films and how indispensable Ed and Lorraine’s chemistry was to each of them. The pain they must confront when taking on the Smurl case and recognizing that Judy shouldn’t even be alive, much less be old enough to be wedding planning with a fiancé Ed doesn’t much like is as engrossing as the dread that overtakes the film once the Smurl family is introduced.

The film even ends with an exceptionally montage, stylishly edited and scored appropriately with melodramatic overtones that show us archival footage of Ed and Lorraine as paranormal professionals and as a loving couple. On-screen text summarizes their impact on their respective field with a balanced amount of critical analysis and respect.

There is a lot to like about The Conjuring: Last Rites, from the way it utilizes a lengthy runtime (135 minutes), to the way Wilson and Farmiga seemingly slink back into these roles, and the charming nature of Tomlinson and Hardy. There’s a chance the lattermost couple could become the basis of a new series all together. Maybe that will be the case, but I can say with a fair amount of certainty it will not meet nor succeed an against-all-odds franchise like The Conjuring, who delivered what it promised four times over.

My review of The Conjuring (2013)
My review of The Conjuring 2
My review of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
My review of Annabelle (2014)
My review of Annabelle: Creation
My review of The Nun (2018)
My review of The Curse of La Llorona

Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy, Steve Coulter, Rebecca Calder, Elliot Cowan, and Kíla Lord Cassidy. Directed by: Michael Chaves.