‘The Conjuring: Last Rites’ Movie Review: A Boring Conclusion That Fails Its Stars
Photo from Warner Bros.
From Joe Peltzer
After more than a decade of demonic cases and close calls, The Conjuring: Last Rites arrives to conclude the tortured saga of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Sadly, the series that once brought new life to the hauntings genre finds itself in familiar territory without much new to offer. What should have been a chilling and resonant farewell instead feels like a tired retread, a disappointing end that rides a welcomed wave of familial heart, yet borrows heavily from past entries without finding new ground to stand on.
In the film, a demonic mirror plagues the Smurl family, a case tied directly to the Warrens’ own past when they nearly lost their daughter Judy in their first ever case (that went unsolved). The tension hovers around a boiling point without ever actually overflowing, blending the professional and the personal in ways that could push the film into more emotional territory than we’ve seen before, but still fails to reach a satisfying level. But while the setup promises a fresh and exciting spin, the execution falls flat. The pacing is uneven and the scares are uneven while the film often slips into stretches that are simply boring. A slow burn can be powerful; here, it’s a road to nowhere.
There are glimmers of what could have been grounded in the solid performances all around. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson once again prove why they are the backbone of this franchise, bringing authenticity and decorum to Lorraine and Ed. Their lived-in chemistry provides the consistency the film desperately needs. Mia Tomlinson steps up into a co-leading role as Judy, giving the Warrens’ daughter a welcome layer of maturity and strength, while Ben Hardy adds a handsome charm as her new flame Tony. It’s a strong ensemble, but one held back by a script that gives them little more than unexplored surface-level drama to work with. For all their efforts, the writing consistently fails the cast, leaving more to be desired for the so-called final film.
The scares, too, underwhelm. The Conjuring films once thrived on dread that built slowly and delivered with a punch, highlighted by moments that stuck with you long after leaving the theater. In Last Rites, we’re left with a handful of startles and little else. Perhaps there was an intent to layer in metaphor… using the cursed mirror as a reflection of inner turmoil, trauma, and generational scars… but any such theme is left underdeveloped and undelivered.
By the time the film finally limps through an uninspired finale (set in the upstairs hallway of a haunted home only), the Michael Chaves’ film opts for an epilogue of sentimentality, peppering in familiar faces for one last bow. It’s nice enough in concept but hokey in execution, a quick moment that feels unearned. Instead of a farewell grounded in everything that made the series tick, we’re left with something safe, predictable, and far from satisfying.
Of course, audiences and series die-hards are likely to disagree. The film is over-performing at the box office, a testament to the franchise’s enduring draw and horrors box office renescance of the last few years. That likely means this “final” entry won’t really be the last; it’s only a matter of time before we here about The Conjuring: The Lost Tapes, or The ConjuringL The Forgotten Case inevitably thrown into development. Why? Money. Horror, after all, remains one of Hollywood’s cheapest and most consistently performing genres. But that’s part of the problem. As long as we collectively settle for mediocre storytelling wrapped in predictable scares and rehashed packaging, save for original horror films like Late Night with the Devil and Weapons, we’ll continue to get more of the disappointing same.
The Conjuring: Last Rites should have been an epic conclusion, one that honored its characters and delivered lasting memories. Instead, it leaves us with an empty mirror and the hollow reflection of what made the series great in the first place, a reminder that even the strongest franchises can lose their way when the stories stop haunting us.
Rating: 1.5/5
The Conjuring: Last Rites is now playing in theaters.
