By Ryan Dailey
Whether you see Ed and Lorraine Warren as pioneers in exploring the paranormal or as conniving scammers, one thing can be agreed upon in regards to the Warrenverse. That is the fact that the franchise and its spin-offs have provided years of solid scares and mostly mediocre tales of possession.
Last Rites falls into the latter category.
The film takes place in 1986, with the obligatory flashback to 1964 as the opening scene, sets up the mundane storytelling to follow. The Warrens have given up field investigations, on account of the Warren patriarch’s heart issues. The couple is now relegated to lecturing a mostly empty room of cynical college students, all of which seem to really like dropping pop culture references of the time as opposed to having an intellectual conversation about the topic at hand, the second major trope and the movie just started.
The Warrens are brought out of their semi-retirement when the Smurl family happens to buy a haunted mirror, prompting the family to become under siege by paranormal forces. The Warrens are familiar with this mirror, as they encountered it once back in 1964 apparently.
The hijinks begin when The Warren daughter, Judy, who inherited her mother’s psychic ability(of course) gets married to her boyfriend of six months. The aforementioned hijinks features an Annabelle doll that turns giant, for some reason.
The Warrens end up going to visit the Smurl family, Judy and her husband to be in tow.
Spoiler alert: The investigation goes exactly as one would think. Dark rooms, flashing lights, characters screaming, characters going into dark rooms all by their lonesome, etc…
Like most “final” installments of a horror franchise, the film’s pregnant run time is stuffed with nods and call backs to the franchise, grasping desperately to the nostalgia factor.
The ending is everything that the audience knew was coming from the opening credits. Archival photos of the real life Warrens and the overwhelming sense that more spin-offs will come starring Warren’s daughter.
All in all, if you are in love with the cinematic portrayal of Ed and Lorraine, Wilson and Farmiga will definitely not disappoint, after all, their versions of the Warrens are top tier, much in the way Robert Downey Junior was able to take a B list superhero, a narcissistic, alcoholic and kick off one of the largest film universes ever, for better or worse. If you love cookie cutter paranormal horror movies, this will hit the spot. But remember that we live in a world where Sinners and Weapons exist. While not terrible, Last Rites brings nothing new to the horror nation, but it is a 5 out of 10.
The Conjuring: Last Rites opened in theaters 9/5/25.