The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) Review

For more than a decade, The Conjuring series has balanced its scares on the shoulders of two unlikely horror icons: a married pair of middle-aged paranormal investigators, who’d look more at home in a parish hall than a haunted house. That has always been the trick of these films. However outlandish the possessions and poltergeists became, the steady presence of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga gave them shape and heart. The Conjuring: Last Rites, billed as the franchise’s swan song, leans heavily into that quality. It is as much a farewell to Ed and Lorraine Warren as it is another go-round of things that go bump in the night.

Director Michael Chaves, returning for his third entry, opts for an approach that blends retrospective fondness with a haunted house template straight out of the first film. The story begins in the past, with Lorraine in labour while an ominous mirror flickers with unholy menace. That houseold item reappears in 1986, when the Warrens are pulled from retirement to help the Smurl family, and inevitably, the past and present collide. Unfinished business has caught up with the demon-duelling duo. The setup is pure franchise comfort food with creaking floorboards, flickering lights and potential threats in every shadowy corner. But from the start, Chaves folds in a clear sense of finality, from visual callbacks to earlier instalments to cameos that remind us of how sprawling this world became.

What sets Last Rites apart is the emphasis on family dynamics over escalating frights. Much of the film is given over to quieter scenes; a barbecue, a cautious young man trying to win his future father-in-law’s approval, a daughter working out what her parents’ legacy means for her. Mia Tomlinson steps into the expanded role of Judy Warren with conviction, capturing the unease of someone born into a life she never chose. Alongside her is Ben Hardy as Tony Spera, the boyfriend keen to belong. Their storylines ensure the narrative torch is readied for a new generation, even if the marketing insists this is the end.

The scares themselves are patchy. There are effective jolts early on – a pantry sequence and a telephone cord that takes on a life of its own – but the middle section drifts. For long stretches, one could be watching a domestic drama with satanic seasoning. When the supernatural finally asserts itself, the results are functional rather than inspired. A spectral doll here, a flash of demonic make-up there. Familiar notes, competently played, but lacking the operatic bravura James Wan once brought to the series.

Still, Wilson and Farmiga remain the franchise’s greatest assets. Farmiga, in particular, gives Lorraine a soulful gravity that makes the most routine exposition compelling. Wilson plays Ed with the quiet vulnerability that we have come to know in the later films, his heart condition woven into the drama with tenderness. As with all of the films in the series, the pair elevates what might otherwise feel like boilerplate into something engaging and more affecting. By the time we approach the film act, the film has shifted from fright machine to emotional curtain call.

Like a lot of big screen horror releases of late, The Conjuring: Last Rites is serviceable and gives a majority of cinemagoers what they’re looking for. As a farewell, the film feels sincere and necessary, expecially for Conjuring universe completists. It may not scare in the way its predecessors once did, but it does remind us why audiences have followed these characters for over a decade.

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The Conjuring: Last Rites trailer