For decades, audiences have followed the dynamic duo of Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren’s (Vera Farmiga) ghost hunting adventures into haunted houses, infested with demons, cursed artifacts and just pure evil. They have been seen playing their iconic characters in movies like Annabelle Comes Home along with a cameo in The Nun. However, the most groundbreaking moment in horror was the series The Conjuring that has been a fan favorite whose 2013 first movie set a new standard for sinister. Since then we have been cursed with The Conjuring 2, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, and now finally The Conjuring: Last Rites, released on September 5, 2025.
Last Rites goes back in time to show a young Ed and Lorraine, expecting their daughter, Judy. When they’re investigating an antique shop, Lorraine comes across a haunted mirror and she feels a pull towards it, leading her to touch it. It immediately shatters and triggers a vision of a demonic entity, threatening her unborn child.
As she recovers, she is sent into premature labor, seemingly caused by that entity. At the hospital, sweat beading down her forehead, the pain of childbirth taking over her, she sees that entity revealing itself from its position in the darkness of the ceiling. Lorraine’s piercing scream made a chill pass through the audience. An unsaid truth everyone acknowledged: if she’s scared, it’s bad.
The story flash-forwards to around 20 years later, introducing the Smurl family. They recently moved into a new home in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. The family consists of Jack and Janet Smurl, their daughters, Dawn, Heather and the twins Carin and Shannon. Jack’s parents, Mary and John also live with them.
For Heather’s confirmation (a Catholic Rite of Passage), her parents get her the same mirror Lorraine touched back then. Strange supernatural occurrences begin happening like objects moving on their own, Heather narrowly missing a kitchen light falling on her and ultimately the family members are surrounded with pure fear caused by a sinister force.
The demon takes an eerie turn and makes its presence more known. It starts using children’s toys to intimidate babies and adults, gives the girls a glimpse of itself and overall uses disembodied voices to escalate tension. The Smurls finally decide to take action and throw out the mirror. It gets crushed by the garbage truck, but shockingly reappears the next morning in Dawn’s blood vomit with shards of glass.
In the Warren’s home, a newly engaged Judy, feels a pull towards the Smurls’ house, like something wants her to go there. Having similar powers to her mother along with the demon attaching itself to her when she was born, she starts seeing the same demon, haunting her thoughts and existence. The infamous Annabelle even makes a return as the demon uses the visions of the cursed doll to haunt Judy.
She feels a pull towards the Smurls’ house and goes there with her fiance, leaving her parents in the dark. She promises to help the terrified and helpless family, but when Ed and Lorraine get there, they immediately refuse, choosing to stay in their retired, lecturing life. With Ed’s health declining, they were reluctant, but with the pleas of the Smurls, their daughter’s psychic sensitivity and the turning point of Judy almost dying convinced them to join.
Judy was lured into the attic, the mirror pulling her psychologically, the shadows swirled, glass hummed and her reflection changed into something demonic. She suddenly is thrown back, tumbling down the stairs, narrowly missing the talons of death. This shakes everybody up and they demonstrate a plan of action. Before this incident, Judy kept seeing visions and was consistently haunted. In a sense of being self reliant and trying to not to worry her parents, she kept all this to herself. A lot of problems could have easily been tackled earlier if she had just shared it with the two people who could have done something about it.
As they get further into it, so does the demon—it uses the ghosts of the previous family living on the land their house is built on, to cause harm to both families. The main antagonist, the demon, uses those three spirits to harm Lorraine and Judy. This part feels very eerie as at every different incident, a new entity is introduced in a chaotic way, forcing our cardiovascular system into an early retirement after all the jumpscares.
Lorraine is trapped in the basement and nearly killed by the “axe man” with a black mouth, who swings without mercy, a testament to his violent past where he killed his wife and her mother. Judy becomes possessed, leading her to attempt to hang herself, Ed and Tony, her fiance, cutting her down in time. This moment truly felt horrific and like evil was going to win.
The mirror becomes a fully hostile force, levitating, spinning and attacking the Warrens and Tony. It causes it to hurt Tony’s leg, burn Ed’s Bible he uses to perform exorcisms and becomes a physical danger. This turn of events heightens the tension and keeps the viewer at the edge of a seat, with their hands ready to cover their eyes, in case of a jumpscare.
The expulsion of the demon and its three spirits occurs with Lorraine, Ed and Judy facing the mirror together. Judy recites a nursery rhyme that Lorraine taught her to stop visions of demons she used to see during her childhood, stands straight and looks at the reflection of the spirits and the demon with resolve.
It indicates a moment of acceptance and strength instead of turning away. The table turns and the evil entities look frightened this time, moments before the mirror shatters. An immediate shift in lighting, from dark and eerie to bright and lively, indicates the expulsion of all things sinister.
The Smurls, relieved from the horror of leaving, live in peace after that. The Warrens lock the mirror’s artifacts in their museum. Judy and Tony get married, Ed and Lorraine happily dance at their wedding and all seems right in the world.
Their happiness is evident in the slideshow of pictures of the real Warrens shown in the end. It seemed like the right ending to a legendary series, leaving the viewer wanting more but treasuring this one, knowing it’s the last rite. It might not have been the best movie in the series, Valak holding a special place as the scariest demon, but it was iconic. For the first time, too much was at stake for the Warrens. Ed’s health, Judy’s life and Lorraine’s legitimate fear and helplessness are a testament to the danger of this entity.
