The Conjuring: Last Rites

I watched an installment from this universe through The Nun II, a film I found frightening but also oddly captivating. Compared to that, this installment strikes a different balance: it delivers its share of scares, but it also leans into moments that don’t always make sense—perhaps deliberately, as a way to heighten tension. Like the previous entries in the franchise, the story is rooted in a “true case,” giving the film a sense of authenticity, though this time the narrative feels more like a summoning than a retelling of the past. What I appreciated is that the film avoids overreliance on flashbacks, keeping the momentum in the present.

The Conjuring: Last Rites, which is played for the last time by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, is the alleged farewell to paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren after twelve years and nine films. This sequel, which was directed by Michael Chaves, who has taken over as the franchise's main director after James Wan left, aims to strike a balance between the horror elements of the series and a poignant family drama about age, legacy, and letting go. With a crescendo that feels more like a poignant eulogy than a horrific climax, the picture succeeds beautifully as a character piece but only sparingly delivering on the scares that created this cinematic universe.

The mood of Last Rites is definitely where it excels. For this last installment, Chaves and cinematographer Eli Born create a visual language that respects the franchise's beauty while modernizing it. Even the most surreal scenes are given a home-movie intimacy by the film's use of handheld camerawork and shallow focus planes, which evokes voyeuristic anxiety. The use of low-resolution VHS cassettes and surveillance film to conceal grotesque images inside ordinary compositions and only reveal them when characters—and viewers—lean in closer is an excellent example of the production design's period replication of 1986.

Although the film spends surprisingly little time exploring its spatial potential, the titular Infinity Castle—or rather, the Smurl family haunting in Pennsylvania—provides an appropriately labyrinthine location. When the horror materializes, it upholds the series' dedication to tactile dread and realistic effects, with ghostly apparitions that feel real rather than artificially created. Every shot is filled with the sense of impending doom, of a chapter coming to a close and doors being locked for the last time. This meta-textual melancholy is more powerful than many of the pre-written horrors.

The genuine emotion that the main actors' performances evoke is the movie's strongest point. After more than ten years in these roles, Wilson and Farmiga's chemistry has developed from a business collaboration to something approaching a real marriage, which is uncommon in long-running series. With Lorraine Warren emanating the "life force so specific and intense" that she appears to truly perceive more than others around her, Farmiga in particular produces work of extraordinary intricacy. Through micro-expressions and bodily reluctance, she suggests the burden of second sight, bringing flawless workmanship to even the quietest moments.

Wilson portrays Ed's deteriorating health and unyielding fortitude with devastating realism, matching her with a more delicate register. The movie leverages Ed's real-life heart problem, which contributed to the Warrens' semi-retirement, to create suspense that goes beyond the paranormal. The tension feels earned rather than artificial when Ed catches his breath after exerting himself or tries to ascend stairs. Here, their love story—the real backbone of this franchise—is fully expressed; as one reviewer put it, despite the possibility that "the most diabolical things of all time could be happening," their bond stays at its center.

In an attempt at a legacy sequel structure, the Warrens' adult daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) and her boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy) are introduced, setting up the next generation to possibly carry on the family business. The most genuinely touching scenes in the movie are produced by this family dynamic: quiet dinners, uncomfortable openings, and the delicate balancing act between adult children who want independence and their protective parents. As a reflection of Lorraine's earlier self, Judy, who inherited her mother's skills but saw them as a curse rather than a gift, adds intergenerational relevance to the story.

But there is a price for this emphasis on Warren family relations. Although the Smurl family is the haunting's official subjects, they are underdeveloped and "not actual key figures in this story" despite the fact that their misery is what propels the plot. We never fully feel their terror, unlike the Perrons or Hodgsons from the first two movies; they are merely story devices that bring the Warrens out of retirement rather than fully formed individuals. The "case" feels less important than the family drama as a result of this imbalance, which is a structural anomaly that respects the franchise's characters but lessens its frightening impact.

The horror aspects in Last Rites are really weak, especially when it comes to jump scares. The movie uses loud noises and fast camera movements too early and too frequently, displaying a "lack of restraint" that its predecessors scrupulously preserved. In contrast to James Wan, who recognized that "using a jumpscare in a horror movie should be like choosing when to pop an inflating balloon," Chaves frequently stabs too early, causing the tension to deflate before it really expands.

Clarity is also lacking in the haunting mechanics and demon design. The opposing powers, linked to a cursed mirror from the Warrens' history, never set clear guidelines for interaction. Viewers are left wondering "how frightened you should be" since the movie "fails to provide viewers with any concrete rules on how this demon operates." In contrast to the theological and procedural clarity that underpinned earlier sections, this ambiguity persists throughout the climax, where the Warrens' strategies for vanquishing the evil seem capricious rather than merited.

Last Rites is the longest Conjuring movie at 135 minutes, and it often feels that way. Although it sets the scene for the significance of the mirror, the opening flashback to 1964 "could have been trimmed in half, if not trimmed more than that, if not left out altogether." In addition to wasting a significant amount of runtime on domestic minutiae that, although rich in character development, postpone the main conflict, the movie takes a long time to introduce the Warrens into the main case. "You feel the runtime and there is still fifteen minutes left" by the time the climax hits.

The film's central identity crisis—is it a family drama about heritage or a horror picture about a haunting—is reflected in the pacing. It aims to be both, but as the emotional stakes rise, the terror aspects seem less and less genuine. A film that "handles the goodbye well, is a super enjoyable movie, but is overlong and isn't without its flaws" is the finished product.

The Conjuring: Last Rites is best appreciated as a love drama about a marriage put to the strain by both supernatural and everyday obstacles, rather than as a horror movie. The actual emotional weight of saying goodbye, the chemistry between Wilson and Farmiga, and the atmospheric portrayal of a closing era—all of these elements go beyond the genre tropes that the picture only sporadically satisfies. Horror rarely tries to be "warm and inspiring," "because unlike a lot of movies that sell the idea of families being stronger when they all work together, this one totally believes in it."

However, it is still "mostly forgettable" as a horror franchise finale. The storyline is confused, the evil presence lacks the legendary punch of Bathsheba, Valak, or even Annabelle, and the scares are competent but rarely inventive. Although the movie was made with affection for its characters, its genre's decreasing returns raise the possibility that the Warrens' story should have ended before the law of diminishing returns took effect.

With an epilogue that is "radiant" in its emotion, Last Rites offers the satisfying conclusion that fans who have followed Ed and Lorraine through nine films about demonic possession and haunted houses have been longing for. It serves as a reminder to horror purists that inconsistent execution and thin plot can only be partially made up for by atmosphere and performance. This last chapter is worth keeping for what it symbolizes—a period when supernatural horror may still startle us—rather than for what it offers, much like the cursed artifacts in the Warrens' basement museum.

Staff:

Directed by: Michael Chaves

Screenplay by: Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick

Story by: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and James Wan

Based on: Characters by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes

Produced by: James Wan and Peter Safran

Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson, and Ben Hardy.

Cinematography: Eli Born

Edited by: Gregory Plotkin and Elliot Greenberg

Music by: Benjamin Wallfisch

Production companies: New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster, The Safran Company, and Domain Entertainment

Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures

Release date: September 5, 2025

Running time: 135 minutes