James Wan’s 2013 film The Conjuring was a big deal for the horror genre. It didn’t reinvent the genre, but it repackaged familiar horror elements in a way that felt fresh. It indirectly started a cinematic universe of films such as Annabelle and The Nun, and many sequels all with varying levels of quality. However, in my opinion at least, the main Conjuring films were the only reliably solid films in this franchise. After 2016’s The Conjuring 2, James Wan stopped directing these films, and has only been a producer on them since. 2021’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (a terrible title, by the way), saw the franchise move to director Michael Chaves’ hands. Chaves had previously made The Curse of La Llrona, a spin-off in the Conjuring universe, which was not well-received. For some reason, they gave Chaves another shot at this, with the Conjuring franchise’s allegedly final film, The Conjuring: Last Rites. Does the film give Ed and Lorraine Warren a proper send-off?

Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are infamous demonologists who have solved cases few would even touch. The year is 1986, and the Warrens are semi-retired. Their 20-something daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) has just gotten engaged to Tony (Ben Hardy), and Ed recently suffered a heart attack and has been told to take it easy. They hear about a haunting that has terrorized the Smurl family in Pennsylvania, and due to some circumstances that tie the Warrens personally to this case, they decide to help the family get to the bottom of this.

The Conjuring: Last Rites is easily the weakest of the main Conjuring films, and yet there’s still a good bit I think fans will enjoy here. It’s almost exclusively thanks to the pairing of Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who remain equally compelling screen presences even if this script doesn’t hit as hard as it should. The advertising campaign for Last Rites sells this story as the most intense, most terrifying, most devastating case the Warrens had ever seen. Even the beginning title crawl really sets the viewer up for something the film doesn’t ever deliver on. It works better as a family drama than a horror movie. The jump scares are predictable and unimaginative, the movie itself is way too long and repetitive, but when we’re focusing on the Warren family, the film is always at least watchable. The central ghost story feels like a lot of been there, done that.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson have made these films their signature roles, despite both actors having done a lot of memorable work in other (better) things over the years. Despite the possibility these stories are at least to some extent, revisionist history about the Warrens – Farmiga and Wilson are much more likable than the real Warrens allegedly were – the two actors make these people feel like fully realized anchors for this franchise, and they’re the element that sets the main Conjuring films apart from all the others. Mia Tomlinson, who I had not seen previously in anything, is quite good as their daughter Judy, as is Ben Hardy as her fiancée Tony. None of the actors playing the Smurl family made much of an impression.

The script by Ian Goldberg, Richard Naing and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick feels like it’s constantly spinning its wheels to keep the viewer interested, and at least for the first half or so, the film is structured to have one big jumpscare setpiece after another. The problem is those jump scares are pretty predictable at this point, and there isn’t a lot we haven’t already seen. There is a somewhat memorable sequence involving a dressing room in a bridal shop, but even that doesn’t go as far as it could. And the climactic sequence shifts between some really effective scares and a let’s-wrap-this-up-already vibe. The last 5-10 minutes, which essentially wrap up the story of the Warrens, is surprisingly emotionally effective, but we certainly take the long way getting there.

I always have enjoyed the procedural nature of the Conjuring films. It feels like we must have an endless well of stories to tell here, and even if they started making them up, we could follow Ed and Lorraine Warren through many more of these. But it’s understandable that Wilson and Farmiga would want to move on to other things, because honestly at this point, they’re better than this. These movies have had diminishing returns the longer they’ve gone on, and it’s my opinion they should have stopped after The Conjuring 2. But if you’re invested and you want to see how we wrap everything up, there are a few things this franchise loyalists will enjoy. But ultimately, this feels like a lot of treading familiar waters, and it’s way too long. The Conjuring: Last Rites ends this franchise with a whimper, and yet I’m glad I stuck with these movies. There has definitely been more good than bad here, despite the weak finale.