Time to Reflect: The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025) Review

Director: Michael Chaves

Notable Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy, Rebecca Calder, Elliot Cowan, Shannon Kook, Steve Coulter, Kila Lord Cassidy, Beau Gadsdon, Tilly Walker, Molly Cartwright, Orion Smith, Madison Lawlor

 

Had anyone let me know ahead of time that The Conjuring: Last Rites was about a haunted fuckin’ mirror, I would have bought my tickets for opening night instead of waiting for the end of the weekend. Not that a haunted mirror movie is guaranteed to be awesome by any stretch of the imagination, but when you have The Warrens going toe-to-toe with a mirror that looks remarkably like Mike Flanagan’s Oculus, I sure as shit would have been there Thursday night at the previews. 

 

Sure, the entire idea that the last mainline Conjuring film would have the delightfully family-focused horror series pitted against a giant 6-foot-tall gothic mirror seems silly, which, to be fair, it is, but this series is known for elevating its material above its schlocky 70s haunted house concepts. And once again, The Conjuring: Last Rites accomplishes that. This fourth (and final?) entry into the series manages to overcome some serious landmine-littered ideas and script issues to deliver another round of love-affirming horror delightfulness while still getting in some intriguing layering that held me until I could write this review. Fans of the series will enjoy it enough, even if it doesn’t reach the heights of The Conjuring or The Conjuring 2, and it puts a nice little period at the end of this“first phase” of the brand. 

 

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

Director: Michael Chaves

Notable Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ruairi O’Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, Julian Hilliard, John Noble, Eugenie Bondurant, Shannon Kook, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Keith Arthur Bolden

 

With almost $2 billion dollars in the box office now, The Conjuring Universe has solidified itself as one of the premiere horror franchises in history. What started as Wan’s love letter to 70s supernatural horror has become a lucrative money-making machine that has spawned far more spin-offs than entries into the original series. The quality of these entries varies, often to a shocking extent, but one thing about the series is that it always finds a way to entertain - even if the whole product is flawed.

 

The latest entry into the series, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, is now the third of the original series and finally catching up to its spin-off series, Annabelle, in quantity. This entry represents a deviation from its two predecessors in a few ways, most notably in that James Wan has stepped away from the director’s chair, but it’s not one that completely abandons the core values for a slightly more convenient approach. Certainly, The Devil Made Me Do It is not the efficient and tightly crafted modern classic one might hope, but it’s also not the wild misfire it might have been. 

 

Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

Director: Gary Dauberman

Notable Cast: Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Michael Cimino, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Samara Lee

Annabelle Comes Home is a fascinating occurrence. The Conjuring franchise is only two films long and it has inspired five theatrically released spin-offs. The latest is the third of its own franchise and the focus of this review. How many theatrically released films can make that claim? There are many franchises where the spin-off series has more entries than the originator, but most of those are relegated to direct to home video with the Scorpion King/Mummy series being the first to come to mind. Here we are with the latest Conjuring-verse film and while none of the spin-offs have held a candle to the roaring fire of horror quality that is the main films, Annabelle Comes Home, weirdly, might be the best. That’s not saying a whole lot, honestly. Although I am quite the fan of most of the films, the quality of the spin-offs has been middling at best with mediocre scripts uplifted by solid directorial choices. Oddly enough it was the last Annabelle film, Annabelle Creation, that was my favorite of the spin-offs and after seeing Annabelle Comes Home with a packed audience, this one just might top it. Barely.

Conjuring 2, The (2016)

Director: James Wan

Notable Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Frances O’Connor, Madison Wolfe, Simon McBurney, Franka Potente, Laruen Esposito, Patrick McAuley, Benjamin Haigh, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Simon Delaney, Shannon Kook, Sterling Jerins, Bob Adrian, Abhi Sinha, Bonnie Aarons, Javier Botet

James Wan remains the king of modern mainstream horror. We should all just admit it now. He takes low budget horror and makes it financially viable with Saw and Insidious. He takes cliché elements and throw back style and gives it the strength to compete against summer blockbusters with his last horror film, The Conjuring. So it’s no wonder that The Conjuring 2 put a dent into the June box office. He accomplishes these kinds of things as a director by going back to basics and not into the realm of popcorn film making that horror so readily focuses on. He focuses on story and on atmosphere. That’s why The Conjuring 2 works so well. Sure, the critics might call it a disappointment because it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the first one, but The Conjuring 2 is better than I expected. In fact, I feel it’s only a smidgen weaker than the original one and matches it in a lot of ways. No, this film is not “original” as I have seen so many reviews claim, but it’s a film that crafts a balance with execution and heart worth seeing.