The Conjuring: Last Rites

There is a particular comfort in returning to the world of the Warrens: the ticking of a grandfather clock, the creaking of a staircase, a flashlight that turns on intermittently... The Conjuring: Last Rites draws on this muscle memory with an unapologetic farewell atmosphere. Directed by Michael Chaves from a screenplay by Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (story by James Wan and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick), this ninth installment in the Conjuring universe delivers its thrills in a swan song that seeks less to surpass past scares than to elegantly bring the series full circle. The film accepts, even seeks out, our familiarity: it makes us relive the rhythms of the Warrens, invites us to notice the costumes, the nicknames, the dark humor, the way Ed, played by Patrick Wilson, continues to lead with stubborn warmth, and how Lorraine, played by Vera Farmiga, can freeze a room with a single precise glance. While the saga has always been halfway between a haunted house and a love story, The Conjuring: Last Rites decides that it is the love story that will have the last word.

The film opens with a prologue in 1964, a tense miniature that serves as both origin story and foreshadowing. A haunted mirror, more heirloom than relic, whose carved frame resembles a reliquary of grief, forces Lorraine, several months pregnant, to give birth. What follows is an unhealthy mix of motherhood and malice, a sequence that feels less like staging and more like a thesis: the Warrens' work has always been a domestic vocation, their sanctuary being not the church but the family. By 1986, retirement would have eased tensions. Ed's heart is a source of concern; a barbecue replaces the information meeting; and their daughter Judy is no longer the trembling child on the sidelines. Remolded and refocused, Mia Tomlinson's Judy is an adult with her mother's gift of clairvoyance and her own reserves, engaged to Tony Spera, a former police officer played by Ben Hardy, who is serious, enthusiastic, and, yes, visibly overwhelmed when evil ceases to be theoretical. The first movement is generous in air and light; Michael Chaves lets the camera linger on small intimacies so that the final intrusion seems sacrilegious.

The case that brings them home concerns the Smurls, a family in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, whose house is besieged by a presence that, inevitably and logically, refers back to that mirror. Elliot Cowan and Rebecca Calder play the parents who are crushed under the weight of a curse that turns everyday objects into weapons: a pantry becomes a trap, a telephone cord a tourniquet, a light fixture a guillotine. Kíla Lord Cassidy and Beau Gadsdon engraved the girls' fear in fragments—the horror of the kitchen sink literally represented by shards of glass in the throat—and the film's most intense thrill comes not from volume, but from close scrutiny, as VHS playback and analog zoom transform grainy video into a forensic séance. It is in this mode that Michael Chaves is most convincing: in broad daylight, with static images, our eyes doing the work. When the film opts for the clarity of the monster in the room, the aura diminishes; the mirror mythology is more conduit than cosmology, and the film's final act sometimes confuses escalation with explanation.

What always works, reliably and often beautifully, is the central quartet. Vera Farmiga remains the franchise's deep engine, calibrating Lorraine's empathy and terror with the precision of a concert violinist; she gives the character's faith a texture that feels lived rather than decorative. Patrick Wilson brings the same steady balance he always has, but here there is also an autumnal timidity—watch his face during a marriage proposal, the glimmer of pride wrestling with the fear of being replaced. Mia Tomlinson makes Judy less a presumptive heiress than a cautious adult learning the cost of the family business, and Ben Hardy pulls off a delicate exercise in the role of Tony: a good man whose courage is human, whose devotion is credible, and whose usefulness is more emotional than tactical. The film's warmest moments—the dress shopping trip that turns into anxiety, a ping-pong break that brings some welcome levity, a motorcycle interlude that feels more like a farewell than a thrill ride—are what justify its indulgent length.

The mirror maze of a wedding dress shop deserves its suspense before giving way to louder, broader effects; the descent into the attic draws its suspense from geometry and timing; a gag in the pantry finds its poetry in negative space. Elsewhere, the franchise's usual tricks—flashes, revelations, obligatory cameos—are polished with sentimentality rather than reinvented. The jumps are well-designed but rarely surprising, and the demon's rules remain elastic, which removes any sense of danger at the end of the film. You can feel the length of the film in the editing: the Warren narrative arc is rich enough to carry a film; the Smurls' haunting, though punctuated with striking micro-moments, sometimes feels like a compilation of the best moments of a new family.

The film is clever when it comes to legacy. It allows James Wan to give a nod to his line of haunted toys without giving birth to a new franchise, and discreetly but unequivocally plants the possibility that Judy and Tony will take up the torch. This tension—finality versus future—suits a series built on artifacts that refuse to remain locked in a box. The mention of a true story still hangs over the whole thing like a challenge, and the film wisely doesn't weigh in on the controversies surrounding the real Warrens; it stays true to the myth it has constructed: devoted love, stubborn decency, a house where holy water sits alongside a broken radio and a music box that should never be wound up again. Even the fleeting pop culture references—radio clips from the 1980s, a casual allusion to Ghostbusters, a resurrected face on television—function less as nostalgic bait than as a reminder that the Warrens are still out of step with the times, slightly out of fashion and all the more disarming for it.

There's also an affectionate sense of humor lurking beneath the surface. Ed, played by Patrick Wilson, remains a man whose stoicism hides a tender heart and, yes, those legs, which have become as much a staple of the franchise as applause in the dark. Lorraine, played by Vera Farmiga, continues to say “Hon” like a sacrament, a little incantation against whatever lurks in the corners. Even Annabelle gets her callback, recontextualized with a mischievous visual gag that amplifies the absurd effect. When the film relaxes, it offers some of its most memorable moments; when it tries to outdo Wan at full volume, it reminds you why the previous films felt cooler and more incisive.

If The Conjuring: Last Rites is truly a farewell to this version of Ed and Lorraine, it's a tender one. The epilogue aims straight for the tear ducts, and to its credit, it honestly deserves those tears, thanks to the accumulation of a shared history rather than manipulative editing. Michael Chaves can't compete with James Wan's virtuoso control of terror, but he finds another register: a Terrence Malick-esque reverie on vocation and its cost, on what it means to lay down your tools without betraying your work. On this level, the film achieves its goal. It may not haunt your dreams like the 2013 original did, but it remains present like a photo you don't put away, because the faces in it remind you of a family you visit every two or three years.

Admittedly, it's not the scariest movie, but the mirror is more effective as a metaphor than as a monster. But The Conjuring: Last Rites understands its mission as a farewell. It pays tribute to the unglamorous glue of this universe—two performances, those of Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, who gave dignity to this pulp with emotion—and it sketches a plausible future for Mia Tomlinson and Ben Hardy without stealing their thunder. The franchise began by turning creaks and clangs into collective gasps; it ends, appropriately, by turning a wedding into a blessing. In a genre that often confuses noise with suspense, this choice seems, if not radical, at least refreshing and human.

The Conjuring: Last Rites
Directed by Michael Chaves
Written by Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick
Story by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, James Wan
Based on Characters by Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes
Produced by James Wan, Peter Safran
Starring  Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy
Cinematography : Eli Born
Edited by Gregory Plotkin, Elliot Greenberg
Music by Benjamin Wallfisch
Production companies : New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster, The Safran Company
Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date : September 5, 2025 (United States), September 10, 2025 (France)
Running time : 135 minutes

Seen on September 19, 2025 at Gaumont Disney Village, Theater 3, seat C20

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