There is something uniquely haunting about watching familiar characters face their final curtain call. The Conjuring: Last Rites, the seventh installment in James Wan’s sprawling horror universe, arrives not only as another chapter of haunted houses and demonic entities but as a goodbye.
For over a decade, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga’s Ed and Lorraine Warren have stood at the center of these films, comforting us with their steadfast love while terrifying us with their brushes against evil. Now, with Last Rites, the Warrens take their final bow. What results is a film that balances supernatural spectacle with emotional closure, reminding us why the series has endured while also highlighting the franchise’s reliance on familiar tropes.
The Conjuring Universe: Building a haunted legacy
To understand why Last Rites feels so heavy with significance, we need to remember the scope of the world it concludes. Since 2013, The Conjuring films have defined 21st-century mainstream horror. What Wan created was more than a series of jump scares, it was a brand, a shared universe that spawned spin-offs (Annabelle, The Nun, The Curse of La Llorona) and shaped audience expectations. At its heart, however, the series has always belonged to Ed and Lorraine.
Unlike many horror sagas that hinge on the killers or monsters, The Conjuring invested in its heroes. Wilson and Farmiga gave the Warrens a grounded tenderness, making them not just paranormal investigators but a couple whose faith in each other felt like a bulwark against evil. That emotional anchor elevated the films beyond standard haunted-house fare. Every battle with the demonic was also a reaffirmation of love and conviction.
Which is why this final installment feels less like a sequel and more like a farewell ceremony. Last Rites doesn’t just confront another haunting, it confronts the inevitability of closure.
The Smurl Haunting: Faith, Family, and Finality
Set in 1986 Pennsylvania, the film centers on the infamous Smurl family case. In Last Rites, the Warrens are called to investigate a house plagued by a possessed mirror—an object that becomes a literal and symbolic portal between memory, fear, and faith. The choice of the mirror is deliberate: it doesn’t just reflect the living, it reflects the past, a motif that aligns perfectly with the Warrens’ own retrospective journey.
The Smurl family’s ordeal embodies themes that have long defined the franchise: the sanctity of home, the resilience of faith, and the fragility of family bonds under supernatural siege. But here, these themes carry a heavier weight. As the Warrens confront the mirror, they are also confronting themselves—aging, vulnerable, aware that their crusade against darkness is nearing its end.
The screenplay by Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing, and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick structures the story around this duality. Every exorcism scene doubles as a meditation on legacy. Every whispered prayer echoes as both ritual and farewell. The film wants us to feel that this is not just another case file for Ed and Lorraine; it is their last.
Scares That Work, Tropes That Linger
Director Michael Chaves has become a reliable steward of Wan’s universe (The Curse of La Llorona, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II), and in Last Rites, his style is both effective and overfamiliar.
The scares land most effectively in the mirror sequences. Chaves weaponizes reflections—hands that don’t move with their owners, faces that linger a beat too long, figures standing where no one should be. These moments deliver a slow-burn dread that recalls the best of the franchise. The exorcism sequences, punctuated by Benjamin Wallfisch’s thunderous score and Eli Born’s shadow-laden cinematography, also achieve the grandeur audiences expect.
And then there are the Easter eggs: a fleeting Annabelle cameo, subtle nods to the Warrens’ past cases, whispers that thread together the larger Conjuring universe. These touches satisfy long-time fans, rewarding investment in a franchise that has spanned over a decade.
Yet, the film cannot fully escape its reliance on convention. Haunted-house beats—doors slamming, lights flickering, voices hissing “get out”—feel recycled. CGI occasionally overwhelms practical horror, rendering certain climaxes more spectacle than scare. The Smurl family themselves, ostensibly the emotional center of the case, are too often sidelined, their trauma reduced to background noise while the focus remains fixed on the Warrens. For a story rooted in a real family’s alleged haunting, this imbalance feels like a missed opportunity.
Farewell to Ed and Lorraine
Where Last Rites truly succeeds is in giving Ed and Lorraine the send-off they deserve. Wilson and Farmiga have always been the franchise’s greatest strength, grounding the supernatural in something deeply human. Their performances here are layered with weariness and devotion, acknowledging the years of battles fought.
One of the most poignant sequences comes late in the film, as Lorraine confronts the mirror not only as a cursed object but as a reflection of everything she has carried—the visions, the losses, the strain of channeling forces beyond comprehension. Farmiga delivers the role with a gravity that elevates even the most formulaic moments. Wilson, too, imbues Ed with a quiet fragility that makes his acts of bravery resonate. These aren’t just characters anymore; they are companions we’ve traveled with for twelve years, and watching them step away feels bittersweet.
A Cultural Phenomenon in Its Twilight
Commercially, Last Rites reinforces why The Conjuring remains horror royalty. Its $83 million opening weekend marked the strongest debut for a 2025 horror film, with a global box office already nearing $200 million. Audiences still crave this blend of “based on real events” authenticity and polished supernatural spectacle.
But culturally, the film also feels like a capstone. In an era where horror franchises often collapse under their own weight, The Conjuring has maintained both profitability and consistency. Its success proves that horror, when anchored by characters we care about, can sustain a universe on par with superheroes and wizards.
The question, of course, is what happens next. Without the Warrens at the center, does the franchise risk losing its heart? Spin-offs may continue, haunted relics may resurface, but the emotional through-line that made The Conjuring stand apart will be harder to replicate.
Last Thoughts: Last Rites, Lasting Echoes
The Conjuring: Last Rites is not a perfect film. It stumbles in familiarity, leans heavily on tropes, and occasionally buries its human story under CGI spectacle. And yet, as a franchise farewell, it resonates. It honors the Warrens not only as characters but as anchors of an entire cinematic universe.
The scares will make audiences jump. The mirror will haunt their reflections. But the real legacy of Last Rites is emotional: the reminder that at the core of horror lies humanity, and at the core of the Warrens’ journey lay love.
In the end, Last Rites feels less like a conclusion and more like a benediction. The Warrens leave us not with screams, but with silence—a silence heavy with everything they endured, and everything we believed alongside them.
And perhaps that is the truest last rite of all: a haunting not of demons, but of memory.
