‘The Conjuring: Final Rites’ evaluate: Can the sequence ship one final scare?

The Conjuring universe has fairly actually administered its Final Rites, the ninth and (apparently) closing installment within the spiritual horror franchise. It has been 12 years since James Wan scared the Valak out of audiences with the primary movie, when Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga first took on controversial real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. 

With director Michael Chaves (The Conjuring 3: The Satan Made Me Do It, The Nun II) on the helm, and a storyline primarily based on the alleged demonic haunting of the Smurl household within the late ’80s, The Conjuring: Final Rites deliberately performs to each trick within the Conjuring ebook. Fan service in horror franchises comes with the territory, and Final Rites‘ cup runneth over with sequence cameos, acquainted manufacturing design, and attribute soar scares aplenty.

Nonetheless, it is the movie’s reverence for the true Ed and Lorraine Warren and the Conjuring universe at giant that may very well be its undoing. With nearly all of the movie spent delivering referential nods and unbridled adulation for its main duo, we’re left ready lengthy stretches for what we got here for: one hell of a closing scare.

What’s The Conjuring: Final Rites about?

A younger Lorraine and Ed Warren (Madison Lawlor and Orion Smith).
Credit score: Giles Keyte

The Conjuring: Final Rites plunges us again into acquainted territory. Like The Conjuring 2, there are parallel hauntings afoot: the alleged demonic disturbance of the Smurl household in West Pittston, Pennsylvania within the late ’80s, and chilling visions skilled by the clairvoyant Lorraine Warren (Farmiga) and her now-grown daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson), who’s trying to silence her burgeoning psychic powers.

To open the movie, we’re despatched again to 1964, the place a younger Lorraine and Ed (Madison Lawlor and Orion Smith) examine a spooky storeroom filled with clocks (certain!), the place a creepy mirror adorned with wood angels screams “don’t contact.” Disregarding this in fact, Lorraine’s contact with mentioned mirror propels one of many movie’s most annoying sequences, wherein our paranormal communicator is distributed into early labour within the firm of a demonic presence. As if giving start wasn’t intense sufficient, Final Rites plunges Lorraine into an expertise of terrifying vulnerability. From right here, nevertheless, Final Rites spends an outlandish period of time on the Warrens’ household life, in a saccharine montage of Judy’s childhood, carousels, and working via flower fields, all the best way as much as their demon-shunning retirement in Connecticut.

It is this overt admiration for the Warrens that feels extraordinarily stretched out in Final Rites, regardless of the couple’s real-life controversies. From the movie’s starting to finish, Wilson and Farmiga’s Ed and Lorraine are portrayed as reluctant heroes of paranormal valiance and fiercely pious and devoted members of the family. The movie spends virtually half its run time following the Warrens of their barbecue-throwing, post-investigation period bliss and thru a very tedious meet-the-parents sequence with Judy’s boyfriend, Tony (Ben Hardy). No matter you consider the true Warrens, Wilson and Farmiga have lengthy imbued the display Warrens with overwhelming credibility; Farmiga has at all times channelled Lorraine with understated believability, and Wilson’s dedication to Ed’s character is the one factor that makes a scene the place characters want to maneuver a mirror genuinely compelling.

Judy (Mia Tomlinson) has inherited her mom Lorraine’s (Vera Farmiga) cursed skills.
Credit score: Giles Keyte

For these tapping their look ahead to the Warrens to get again to investigating, there’s the opposite storyline, described by the sequence’ signature vivid yellow Courier New font declaring the following occasions as “primarily based on a real story” and loosely tailored from the Warrens’ reported haunting circumstances — following the Perron household of Rhode Island in 1971 (The Conjuring), the Amityville murders and the “Enfield Poltergeist” case within the late ’70s (The Conjuring 2), the homicide trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson (The Conjuring: The Satan Made Me Do It).  This time, it is a infamous case from 1986 in Pennsylvania, the place we’re launched to characters primarily based on the true Janet and Jack Smurl (performed by Rebecca Calder and Elliot Cowan), who claimed that their household was stricken by a demonic presence.

And it is this storyline that sees the movie slotting into basic Conjuring model.

The Conjuring: Final Rites is a Conjuring film by the numbers.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga take a closing bow as Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Credit score: Giles Keyte

Director Michael Chaves is well-versed within the Conjuring universe, having directed the third Conjuring movie in addition to the sequel to The Nun and the thinly related The Curse of La Llorona. Nonetheless, regardless of its stable scares, the movie feels considerably trapped in fan service, ticking off signature Conjuring bins and delivering two satisfactory however undeniably well-soundtracked (hell sure, The Cult) storylines directly.

The whole lot you’d anticipate from a Conjuring movie is right here. Actual footage of the Warrens spliced with that of Wilson and Farmiga. Eerie music bins and cursed dolls from yesteryear. A contented household being terrorised within the evening, usually by the use of their favorite video games or in a creepy-ass basement. A household canine who makes the viewers nervous for its security. Menacing notes scrawled with the phrases “Miss me?”

There is a copious quantity of references to earlier Conjuring movies in Final Rites, together with The Nun and Annabelle motion pictures. Followers would possibly enjoyment of listening to Ed warn his visitors but once more to not contact something within the basement of the Warrens’ Connecticut residence the place cursed objects just like the Annabelle doll dwell — the movie even has Wilson repeat his traces from the primary Conjuring film: “Nothing’s a toy, not even the toys.” And as for the cameos? Simply wait to see for your self (although seeing Officer Brad Hamilton rocking his chew mark from The Conjuring in a barbecue scene is a frankly hilarious heads-up).

However the true Conjuring model comes out within the scares — of which there are numerous.

The Conjuring: Final Rites delivers on soar scares.

Uh, Judy? You OK?
Credit score: Courtesy of Warner Bros. Footage

By no means worry, Conjuring-style scares are current in each storylines, with the Smurls beset by greater than bumps within the evening in Pennsylvania, and poor Lorraine unable to order linguini or do the dishes in Connecticut with out being interrupted by a malicious presence. Final Rites‘ parallel narratives observe the Warrens’ consistently cited “three levels of demonic exercise” to the letter: “infestation, oppression, and possession,” from these early ghostly whisperings to the dreaded takeover, with ample scares alongside the best way.

The Conjuring universe, established by Wan’s good 2013 unique, has turn out to be synonymous with that basic horror weapon of the misdirected soar scare. Cameras pan forwards and backwards increase dread with fake-outs. Characters are constantly compelled to make use of torches with restricted lighting. Audiences frantically seek for faces in darkish corners, plunge their fingers into their ears, and watch for the drop. Although with out as a lot surprising innovation as the unique (however with Wan in a producing position), Final Rites is brimming with these soar scares, with Eli Born’s audacious cinematography, nail-biting sound design by Harry Cohen, a very efficient scene involving a telephone wire disappearing right into a pantry, and savvy use of VHS footage for stable creeps.

Final Rites seems like a Conjuring movie in each sense of the franchise, but it surely’s barely disappointing the movie does not pull out all of the stops to bid adieu to Wilson and Farmiga’s now iconic characters. Fan service, it has in spades. However really memorable scares and compelling storylines that push the Conjuring sequence so far as it may go? Much less so. Nonetheless, if you wish to take another journey into the Warrens’ basement of cursed curiosities, it is price a watch, for previous terrifying time’s sake.

The Conjuring: Final Rites is streaming on HBO Max.

UPDATE: Nov. 20, 2025, 4:43 p.m. This evaluate was first printed on Sept. 5, 2025. It has been up to date to replicate its streaming availability.