Since 2013, The Conjuring and its spin-offs have established themselves as a staple within the horror movie franchise. Centered on the exploits of real-life supernatural investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, this Sherlock Holmes and Watson tag-team take on supernatural threats as well as personal issues, while balancing a family and a life of their own. Despite the ten films within The Conjuring Universe, four specific films directly involve Ed and Lorraine’s cases, including the latest movie, The Conjuring: Last Rites. With this 2025 addition, which is said to be the final Conjuring movie, how does it fare as a whole?
The Conjuring Begins…
The movie takes place in the 1960s with a pregnant Lorraine with her husband Ed encountering their first demonic case of a demon utilizing a mirror. As the investigation begins, a supernatural event occurs, which causes Lorraine to undergo labor. Ed rushes Lorraine to the hospital, where she delivers a baby who was not breathing. After holding the child and praying to God, the baby starts breathing, and their daughter Judy is alive. However, this is only the beginning of their trials.
Over the years, we see Judy grow up, and we learn she has some form of connection with the supernatural. This results in Lorraine attempting to guide Judy to suppress her visions.
The Conjuring… Ends?
Now, in the 1980s, Judy is older and has a boyfriend named Tony who visits her parents to celebrate Ed’s birthday. At the party, we see familiar faces from the past Conjuring movies, and in a separate storyline, we witness the return of the demonic mirror to a family of eight living in a home in Pennsylvania, which begins our tale.
Not Truly A Technical Masterpiece
The movie, like its predecessors, is filled with fright and a lot well well-done techniques in pacing and CGI, which aids the timing of their shots. However, at the beginning of Act 1, where we are introduced to the family of eight who have inherited the demonic mirror as a gift to one of the daughters of the home, on two occasions, we witness the lighting setup by the crew in the dining area that was caught in the shot. Catching these two errors was a novice mistake that should have been avoided by the Directing, Grip, and Lighting Departments, as well as the Continuity Supervisor.
The potential future for The Conjuring
Despite these two mistakes, the film puts a decent end to the story of Ed and Lorraine as a whole, but opens the door for other spin-offs due to the introduction of the younger Ed and Lorraine from the 1960s section of the story, if they wish to capitalize on these new additions. The younger cast of Ed, played by Orion Smith, and Lorraine, played by Madison Lawlor, has the ability to keep the stories going with small appearances of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as the older Ed and Lorraine Warren, but only time will tell.
