The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025)

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Conjuring Reviews

Considering the message this movie ends with, I won't spoil much of anything, but I do feel the need to point out a friendly reminder that the real-life Ed and Lorraine Warren were complete and utter frauds who took advantage of people, some with mental health problems, and made a living off it. The thing is, with a genre like horror, we can take these "true stories," twist them into something else, and quite honestly, make some good horror where Ed and Lorraine essentially play the superheroes of this universe.

I treat these films as pure entertainment, as many elements of serious horror that I like are present throughout the series. While there are plenty of tropes as well, they generally provide the things I'm looking for in a serious horror movie; the 'Conjuring' series offers up a lot of suspense, strange visuals, and, above all else, from my perspective, the Warrens, as characters, take a back seat to everything else. I'm here to see the families, the hauntings, and possessions, and to encounter something that will ultimately make me feel uneasy later, marking it as effective. 'Last Rites' is thankfully such a chapter.

Before I get into it, however, note that the film focuses a lot more on the Warrens this time around; namely their now grown-up daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) who brings her boyfriend, Tony (Ben Hardy) home to meet her parents, of course, Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga), who have since retired from their jobs as demonologists due to Ed's heart problems he received during an exorcism in the previous film. So, this is one case where, unfortunately, the Warrens are more front and centre of it all, but I still found a lot of what I wanted to be effective.

Getting into some of that, things start when the Smurl family moves into a new house in rural Pennsylvania. It's a bustling household, hosting a huge family on the day of one of the daughters' confirmations, Heather's (Kíla Lord Cassidy). As a gift, her grandparents (Peter Wight and Kate Fahy) gave her a creepy antique mirror, which just so happens to be part of a demonic case Ed and Lorraine investigated. At the same time, Lorraine was pregnant with Judy, causing Judy to come out of the womb stillborn, but saved with prayer. In other words, going back to Tony, he may be in over his head with more than just an unusual family.

Before long, the mirror starts the dance of the demons as strange things start happening to several members of the Smurl family, which also includes Heather's sisters, Dawn (Beau Gadsdon), Carin (Tilly Walker), Shannon (Molly Cartwright) and her parents, Jack (Elliot Cowan) and Janet (Rebecca Calder). They call on their priest, Father Gordon (Steve Coulter), for help, who luckily may have the proper case to bring Ed and Lorraine back into the game, having their experience with the mirror come full circle.

Aside from portraying Ed and Lorraine as heroes as opposed to the jerks they actually were, a few more things got irksome along the way for me. For example, the Smurl family is far too loud, rambunctious and annoying, even if it is meant to highlight how haunted they all look later. It also runs too long, and could have been edited down, as there are moments that drag. However, as far as the scares go, they were effective for the most part, including some imagery involving broken glass and blood that did manage to stick with me later on, effectively evoking that discomfort.

'The Conjuring' and other related films are another one of those series in which the first title will probably never be topped as far as its overall effectiveness goes, at least for me. But even then, it is admittedly hard to watch these sometimes, trying to separate the movie from what it is, when the movie still seems to suck up to Ed and Lorraine, all the same. Even some of the things I like about these movies get executed poorly when you learn the real stories behind these hauntings. Really, effective or not, it might be time to give this universe a rest.

3/5

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