September 12, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Michael Chaves
Culture Representation: Taking place in Pennsylvania and in Connecticut, in 1964 and in 1986, the horror film “The Conjuring: Last Rites” (loosely based on true events) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Paranormal investigator spouses Ed Warren and Lorraine Warren and their daughter Judy Warren get involved in a case of a haunted mirror that is a conduit for an evil spirit.
Culture Audience: “The Conjuring: Last Rites” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, “The Conjuring” franchise, and formulaic horror movies that bungle key aspects of the storytelling.
“The Conjuring: Last Rites” is a jumbled horror movie that has too many plot holes and too many over-used clichés. This bland story (about a haunted mirror and demon possession) is a mix of dull family scenes and unimaginative terror scenes. Although “The Conjuring” movies are loosely based on the real case files of Connecticut-based paranormal investigator spouses Ed Warren and Lorraine Warren, everything in “The Conjuring: Last Rites” not only looks fictional but it also looks like sloppily made fiction.
Directed by Michael Chaves, “The Conjuring: Last Rites” was written by Ian Goldberg, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Richard Naing. “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is the fourth movie in “The Conjuring” movie series that began with 2013’s “The Conjuring” and continued with 2016’s “The Conjuring 2” and 2021’s “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.” Ed Warren (played by Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (played by Vera Farmiga) are the main characters in all four of these movies.
In real life, Ed Warren died in 2006, at the age of 80. Lorraine Warren died in 2019, at the age of 92. The Warrens were controversial among skeptics, but the couple also had a large fan base of believers. As depicted in “The Conjuring” movies, the Warrens kept many artifacts that they believed are cursed. These items were locked up in a room in their house in Monroe, Connecticut, and were eventually put on display in the Warren Occult Museum, which has been permanently closed since 2019.
“The Conjuring: Last Rites” begins in 1964, when young spouses Ed (played by Orion Smith) and Lorraine (played by Madison Lawlor) have arrived at a house in an unnamed U.S. city. Ed and Lorraine are at the house to interview a woman named Victoria Grainger (played by Paula Lindblom), who says that her father was found hanging from a noose in his shop. Victoria is convinced that her father was murdered by something evil that lives their house.
Lorraine is about eight or nine months pregnant during this investigation. She goes upstairs and sees a tall mirror with goblin-like creatures carved at the top of the frame. Lorraine says to the mirror, “My name is Lorraine Warren, and I can feel your spirit.” And when a pregnant woman is in a demon possession horror movie, you know what that means.
As soon Lorraine announces herself and says she can feel the spirit in the room, the mirror cracks, and she clutches her abdomen in pain. Lorraine goes into labor. Ed frantically drives Lorraine to a hospital, where Lorraine gives birth to a girl who appears to be stillborn.
Lorraine and Ed are emotionally devastated, as Lorraine holds the baby and prays out loud intensely by repeating: “Please bring her back.” Within a few moments, the baby starts breathing again. Lorraine and Ed think it’s a miracle. They name their baby Judy.
“The Conjuring: Last Rites” then fast-forwards to 1986. In the city of West Pittson, Pennsylvania, the Smurl family is celebrating the Catholic Church confirmation of daughter Heather Smurl (played by Kila Lord Cassidy), who’s about 15 or 16 years old. After the confirmation ceremony, the family heads back to the family home for a celebration dinner.
The other members of the Smurl family who are at this dinner are Heather’s parents Jack Smurl (played by Elliot Cowan) and Janet Smurl (played by Rebecca Calder); Heather’s sister Dawn Smurl (played by Beau Gadson), who’s about 13 or 14; Heather’s fraternal twin sisters Carin Smurl (played by Tilly Walker) and Shannon Smurl (played by Molly Cartwright), who are about 9 or 10 years old; and two of Heather’s grandparents (played by Peter Wight and Kate Fahy). who do not have names in the movie.
The grandparents have given Heather a gift that the grandparents said they found at a swap meet. It’s a tall mirror that has goblin-like creatures carved at the top of the frame. The mirror is also cracked. The family dog immediately starts barking at the mirror. And you know what that means.
What isn’t as easy to explain is why anyone would give a child such a creepy-looking and damaged mirror as a gift. Don’t expect this movie to explain why. It’s one of the many lapses in logic in “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” which retreads the horror movie stereotype of a demon that targets teenage girls or young women.
Not long after the mirror is in the Smurl home, strange things start to happen. A ceiling falls partially down on Heather and injures her. Carin and Shannon have a crawling baby doll that seems to be able to move from room to room by itself.
Heather and Dawn eventually believe that the mirror is cursed. And so, they both take the mirror to be thrown out with the rest of the family’s garbage. A garbage truck is shown taking the mirror and the other garbage away. Inside the garbage truck, the mirror is shown being crushed by a garbage compactor. Remember that when the mirror is seen again uncrushed in a crucial part of the story.
Even though the mirror is out of the Smurl house, strange things still happen to the Smurl family, such as Dawn vomiting blood in the kitchen sink and finding shards of glass in her mouth. The Smurl parents eventually go to the media with their story, but they experience ridicule from many people in the community. The Smurls eventually enlist the help of a Catholic priest named Father Gordon (played by Steve Coulter), who knows Ed and Lorraine. The character of Father Gordon was also in the previous three “Conjuring” movies.
After the haunting in the Smurl family home begins, the movie shows a caption announcing that the Smurl family case is the last case the Warrens investigated because the case devastated the Warrens. But it takes an awfully long time in the movie before the Warrens go to the Smurl house to investigate. The Warrens and the Smurls don’t actually meet each other until the movie is more than halfway over.
An overly long stretch of “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is about drama in the Warren family in the family’s home city of Monroe, Connecticut. Judy (played by Mia Tomlinson), who is now 22, has fallen in love with a former police officer named Tony Spera (played by Ben Hardy), who is currently unemployed. Tony loves Judy too, but he knows his unemployment status doesn’t make him an ideal boyfriend.
When Judy introduces Tony to her parents at a Warren family barbecue party, Ed predictably doesn’t approve of Tony, who tries hard to get Ed to like him. Lorraine is more understanding and more accepting of Tony. Ed and Lorraine are semi-retired from paranormal investigating and have been giving speaking appearances at places like college campuses, where they have poorly attended lectures. Most of the people who show up are skeptics or seem bored.
A scene from Judy’s childhood shows that Lorraine found out that Judy has psychic abilities that are similar to Lorraine’s. And you know what that means: adult Judy wants to become a paranormal investigator too, but her parents are very reluctant to have her join the family business. Judy hears about the Smurls and decides to go to West Pittson to investigate on her own. You can easily figure out what happens during the rest of the film.
Throughout “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” certain people have nightmares or visions of a decrepit elderly woman and a man in overalls with a bloody axe. The movie explains who these people are in a rushed and disjointed way. The same goes for the revelations about the demon and what the demon wants.
The movie’s biggest plot hole has to do with the mirror. After the mirror was hauled away and crushed in the garbage truck, the mirror ends up in the attic of the Smurl house in the same condition it was in before the mirror was hauled away and crushed in the garbage truck. The movie gives an idiotic reason for why the mirror has reverted back to its original form and has somehow magically transported itself back into the Smurl house without anyone noticing until the inevitable showdown scene. Ed makes a nonsense comment by saying that evil has a way of doing unexplainable things, and that’s why the mirror found its way back to the Smurl house.
The jump scares in “The Conjuring: Last Rites” have all been seen and done before in other horror films. And there’s a lot of inconsistency in the plot and in the action scenes. For example, during the movie’s big showdown scene, someone gets a serious leg injury where skin is ripped apart and there’s a lot of blood. And yet, by the end of this scene, this person is standing up and moving as if the injury doesn’t exist.
Of all the cast members in “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” Farmiga makes the most effort to be convincing in her role. The other performances in the movie are adequate. Several characters from previous “Conjuring” movies make cameo appearances in “The Conjuring: Last Rites,” including police officer Brad Hamilton, played John Brotherton.
Benjamin Wallfisch’s haunting music score is very effective and is one of the highlights of this otherwise lackluster horror movie. However, the best performances and score music in the world still wouldn’t be able to overcome the movie’s poorly constructed plot that falls short of being truly innovative or terrifying. The movie’s visual effects are fairly standard for a major-studio horror movie.
“The Conjuring” franchise is set to include a spinoff TV series (debuting on HBO Max sometime in 2026), and it remains to be seen what direction the franchise will take with this TV series. Anyone who knows anything about blockbuster horror movie franchises should not believe the hype that “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is the last “Conjuring” movie. But when it comes to creativity, unless “The Conjuring” franchise can redeem itself with a better movie, a more accurate title for “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is “The Conjuring: Last Legs.”
Warner Bros. Pictures released “The Conjuring: Last Rites” in U.S. cinemas on September 5, 2025.
