The Conjuring: Last Rites

The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025)

57% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 164 reviews)

Runtime: 135 minutes

Directed by: Michael Chaves

Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy, Rebecca Calder, Elliot Cowan

From: New Line Cinema

A good time… as long as you don’t believe this as reality. An uncomfortable truth is that IRL, Ed & Lorraine Warren surely seem like charlatans, dishonest in their purported claims of the alleged paranormal events they investigated. Ed & Lorraine probably shouldn’t be lionized like this… at the same time, I’ve seen all the films in The Conjuring Universe (the one about La Llorna apparently doesn’t count) and I at least liked most of them. Films in that style are preferable to most of that elevated nonsense or those new slashers that just feel so smug, as if the filmmakers are either trying way too hard to be “cool” or they feel above the material.

The movie versions of Ed & Lorraine Warren are still likable. The same holds true for them in Last Rites, where the focus is on them and their adult daughter Judy. It’s awhile before they investigate the Smurl family in the eastern portion of Pennsylvania. As always, those alleged hauntings as documented are FAR different than what was portrayed on screen. The Smurls claimed those events happened for FIFTEEN years; furthermore, they did not occur due to a haunted object (the identity of such made me how with laughter; who knew a certain low-budget 80’s horror flick would be influential?) that had previous contact with Ed & Lorraine.

The story they presented was ludicrous; the finale, laughable at times, to be frank. Even so, I still liked this film; an improvement on the third installment, it was. Liking both the Warren and the Smurl family did help—insert your own Vin Diesel joke if you wish. The music was nice, along with hearing 80’s songs that were either familiar or not overplayed to death like you get in most big-budget films of modern times that use them. As sappy as it may sound, both families were nice & charming in their own ways.

That’s why I earnestly enjoyed this movie, despite its flaws & implausibility. The present of some nice scares was of course the other critical reason why I can give this a passing grade. The first two Conjuring movies were better than this, but at least 4 was better than 3. This is the purported last Conjuring movie—but of course this did way better than expected at the box office so already, a prequel was announced. That’s not as bad a way to continue the franchise if they felt it was absolutely necessary. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga will be missed in their roles.