There’s something insidious about “The Conjuring” franchise (and I’m not saying that because the director who helped create it, James Wan, also helped create the “Insidious” franchise). Since 2013, “The Conjuring” films have painted a saintly picture of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and yet, if you read up on the real Ed and Lorraine, you’ll likely come away thinking they were either woefully naive at best, or scheming con artists at worst — and that’s not even mentioning the disturbing allegations involving Ed and a woman who lived in the Warren household. On top of all that, the films traffic heavily in full-blown Christian propaganda. The Warrens are very religious, and use Christian paraphernalia in all their cases. To add fuel to that fire, in the very first film, we learn that an evil ghost witch haunting a house was a witch executed Salem witch trials, a reveal that suggests the innocent women wrongfully sentenced to death during those heinous trails were actually witches in league with Satan.
I’m well aware of all of this and it bugs me. And yet … I also love these films. Well, to be more specific, I love the highly fictionalized versions of Ed and Lorraine Warren, played perfectly by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. The real Warrens may or may not have been frauds, but the characters in the films are a kind, loving couple who go out of their way to help people being tormented by the forces of darkness. Is it morally questionable to embrace a film series that whitewashes two people that very well could have been con artists exploiting people at their lowest? I honestly don’t know. All I know is that every time a new “Conjuring” movie rolls around that focuses on Ed and Lorraine, I’m excited (the spin-off films like “The Nun” and “Annabelle”? Not so much).
After several traumatic ghostly adventures, the story of the Warrens comes to a close with the grand finale “The Conjuring: Last Rites.” It’s an overstuffed, hectic film, but it’s also funny, sweet, and full of the type of well-crafted funhouse scares that get the job done. And once again, the driving force here is the undying love between Ed and Lorraine, who must face off against a demonic presence they first encountered back in the ’60s when their ghost hunting career had just begun.
Once again, the Warrens must help a family plagued by ghosts
“The Conjuring” films tend to follow a formula, and “Last Rites” is no different. Once again, a working-class family finds themselves besieged by evil spirits, and once again, the Warrens need to help. But “Last Rites” does alter the formula ever-so-slightly. For one thing, the film is set in 1986, and the Warrens aren’t what they used to be. They still give lectures, but when they do, it’s mostly to half-empty rooms where rude college kids make jokes about recently released movie “Ghostbusters.” On top of that, they’ve pretty much given up field work because of Ed’s heart condition (he had a heart attack in the last movie, “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It”).
Because of this semi-retirement, it actually takes a surprisingly long time for the Warrens to show up and help the Smurl family, a large bunch living in West Pittston, Pennsylvania who find themselves being attacked by ghouls after purchasing a spooky cursed mirror from a flea market (look out, “Oculus,” there’s a new haunted mirror movie in town!). As it turns out, the Warrens encountered this malevolent mirror once before in 1964, and it seems to have been biding its time ever since.
While the Smurls struggle to cope with their haunting, Ed struggles with the inevitable march of time. Not only is he getting older, but his daughter Judy is all grown up. Judy has been played by a variety of child actors, most notably Mckenna Grace in the wonderfully silly “Annabelle Comes Home.” Here she’s played by Mia Tomlinson, and like her mother, Judy has psychic abilities — but she’s been advised for years by Lorraine to push them down and ignore them, because they’re too dangerous.
The Warrens are taken aback one day when Judy’s boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy) announces he wants to marry Judy even though they’ve only been dating for six months. Ed thinks it’s too soon, but a sympathetic Lorraine points out that she and Ed were married quickly after they met as well. So the Warrens give their blessing, Judy and Tony get engaged, and then everything starts going very wrong. Eventually, this will all lead to a big, loud VFX-enhanced showdown at the Smurl house, complete with all the characters screaming as the lights flash and Annabelle the doll balloons up into a giant (for reasons I honestly do not understand). It’s all a bit muddled and not entirely convincing, but it somehow works because the franchise has built up so much good faith by making us love the Warrens. It really is a testament to how likable Farmiga and Wilson are — we’re always rooting for these two to defeat things that go bump in the night.
Last Rites looks great
“Last Rites” hails from director Michael Chaves, who also helmed “The Devil Made Me Do It,” (as well as “The Nun 2” and the rather terrible “The Curse of La Llorona”) and he’s drastically improved as a filmmaker — “Last Rites” looks great. Indeed, it might be the best looking “Conjuring” film since the first. Working with cinematographer Eli Born, Chaves seems to be pulling out all the stops, going for big, memorable shots and mise en scene that isn’t really concerned with realism but more with a pulpy, eerie atmosphere. A stunning shot of the Smurl house at night with a lit-up refinery churning away in the dark sky in the background perfectly sells working-class Pennsylvania suburb vibes, and a climactic moment where the camera zooms out of the back door of the house, flies up over the roof, and then comes crashing down through the front door is so wonderfully over-the-top that I found it delightful. The director is showing off, and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Chaves also has put together a gaggle of memorable horror set pieces that invoke the type of scares one gets from a carnival haunted house — you jump, you scream, you laugh, you move on to the next thing with nervous anticipation. One of the best scares arrives when Judy is trying on her wedding dress in a small, cramped room surrounded by mirrors. We just know something bad is going to happen the minute the store clerk leaves Judy alone in there. Another great moment has one of the Smurl children watching a home movie on VHS and repeatedly rewinding and hitting pause to try to make out a mysterious figure in the background — using the archaic, out-of-date technology only heightens the anxiety of the scene. There’s also a wonderful sequence involving a landline telephone cord (remember those?) that I won’t spoil.
I loved these moments, and I took a sort of sick glee in listening to the audience around me freak out repeatedly (one poor woman sitting behind me kept muttering “No, no, no” anytime something scary was about to happen). This effectiveness coupled with a genuine emotional sweetness that plays out among the Warrens and between Judy and Tony, who seem to really love each other, frequently feels like enough to make “Last Rites” a worthy goodbye. But there are stumbles along the way.
Last Rites is a fitting goodbye to the Warrens
The biggest issue plaguing “Last Rites” is that it starts to feel overstuffed. The film clocks in at over 2 hours and it absolutely shouldn’t. Yet, I’m not sure how you’d successfully trim it down — you’d likely have to remove great little character moments that showcase the emotional connections between Ed, Lorraine, Judy, and Tony, and that would only hurt the film. Those character moments are what make “The Conjuring” more than just a generic haunted house franchise.
The Smurls, meanwhile, are the least-developed family the Warrens have helped. The actors are all doing the best they can with the material they have, and they genuinely feel like a large ’80s family living in a cramped house all talking at the same time. But we never truly get a sense of who they are they way we did the families in the previous three main “Conjuring” entries.
Then there’s the morality of the whole thing. Like I said: I love the fictional Warrens, but the real Warrens were questionable people at best. “Last Rites” vaguely touches on this with a bit of closing text that says some people considered them “controversial.” At the same time, the rest of that closing text more or less implies the Warrens were two of the most important people who ever walked the earth. It’s enough to give you whiplash. But damn it, Wilson and Farmiga make such a perfect loving couple, and adding Tomlinson to the mix as the adult Judy only enhances that relationship.
Whatever the flaws of “The Conjuring” series as a whole, “Last Rites” feels like a worthy conclusion. It’s a sweet-natured and surprisingly funny film (probably the funniest entry in the series). Sure, it’s claims of being based on a true story are laughable, but so what? This isn’t a documentary, it’s junk food entertainment, and sometimes, your body craves those sort of empty calories. I, for one, will miss the (fictional) Warrens.
/Film Rating: 7 out of 10
“The Conjuring: Last Rites” opens in theaters on September 5, 2025.
