The Conjuring: Last Rites

The fourth and supposed final entry is a stuporous disappointment

James Wan sparked a horror renaissance in the early 2010s when he delivered the one-two punch of Insidious (2010) and The Conjuring (2013). Both films spawned franchises and spin-offs, and while Wan helmed the first two sequels for each, he took a step back with the rest. For The Conjuring films it has meant a series of entries with diminishing returns. Inexplicably the creative reins of the franchise were handed to Michael Chaves, who delivered some of the most colorless and bland films with The Curse of La Llorona (2019) and The Nun II (2023). He helmed the third film in the main Conjuring franchise The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) and now delivers the fourth and (supposedly) final case of protagonists Ed and Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025).

Last Rites takes place in 1986 with Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) retired from being paranormal exorcists, yet when a case from their deep past comes back to haunt them, their daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) becomes central to the evil entity’s interest. This is while she’s been trying to move on with her life, with her charming boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy) in tow. Meanwhile, the Smurl family in western Pennsylvania is being haunted by this entity after bringing home an old mirror.

Last Rites is once again billed as the “final” film in the Warren’s saga, but The Devil Made Me Do It had also been pegged as “the case that made them retire.” As such the finality is only as real as the actual box office numbers, and as Last Rites has broken the record for highest box office opening for a horror film both domestically and globally, I truly don’t believe this is the last we’ll see of the Warrens. Even if this were the capstone to this tired franchise, Last Rites doesn’t deliver anything special or grand, instead producing a throwaway haunting flick.

Chaves has not been breathed originality into his horror films; scares come predictably and rely entirely on jumping at the audience with loud sounds and whip-pans. It’s the easiest and cheapest way to get viewers’ heartrates going and makes the actual horror all the more forgettable. Jump scares can be crafted well, if one plays with expectation and tropes; it need not be announced and placed bluntly in your face, but rather the more subtle the more effective. Think of the clapping basement scene in the first Conjuring, or the painting in the attic reveal in The Others (2001). Chaves meanwhile plays to the least common denominator, resorting to fake-outs and seemingly driven by a quota to of scares-per-minute than delivering anything that will haunt you home.

Last Rites is the longest Conjuring film at two hours and fifteen minutes and is unfortunately also the slowest. Chaves stuffs his film with interminably long scenes and conversations that lead nowhere. Most criminally all these scenes have nothing to do with the central mystery or horror. Instead we get, not one, but two family dramas that couldn’t interest viewers less. There’s a whole “meet the parents” plot with Judy and Tony, that while sweet is completely inconsequential. Meanwhile the Smurls’ story features overly long sequences of sibling jealousies, a Confirmation, and family dinners. The Warrens don’t arrive and do actual ghost busting until more than an hour into the film, up to then it’s an endless loitering that never builds to anything substantial.

Such a languid and aimless first two acts can be salvaged by a winning third act. Yet the central demon – supposedly the most menacing the Warrens had faced – is never identified, given a motivation, or backstory, more pathetically the way the Warrens defeat it (SPOILER) is to say “you’re not really here!” with conviction (END OF SPOILER. It’s a cop-out of an ending that mixes disappointment in with the stupor.

The acting is as bland as the story itself, with Farmiga and Wilson delivering wearied performances of actors forced to complete the last film in their contract. The rest of the cast delivers serviceable if by-the-numbers horror performances, and struggle to bring much life into the dramatic family scenes.

In the end, The Conjuring franchise, which so brilliantly brought a new era of horror to the screen, has devolved into what it had started rebelling against. The exit of Wan from the director’s chair was going to always be felt, yet Chaves, with control over franchise, shows an inability to escape lazy, predictable, and uninspired films. The film never enters the so bad it’s good zone, thus making it simply a boring watch. One wishes this franchise would die quietly while it’s got some credibility left.

4.6/10