Released on Sept. 5, 2025, “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is the finale to the widely popular “The Conjuring” horror movie series. The movies, set in 1970s United States, focus on a couple Ed and Lorraine Warren as they exorcize demons and different supernatural phenomena all around the world.

Let me preface this by saying that I love movies and films of all kinds, but if I had to pick a least favorite genre of movie, it would have to be horror. In fact, the kind of horror that “The Conjuring” movie ushered into the mainstream in 2013 is my least favorite. I love thrillers and older horror (give me “Silence of the Lambs” or “Midsommar” but demon-focused, jumpscare-based horror has never been my cup of tea.

Due to this, while I’ve watched them with friends, I’ve never been a massive fan of any of the movies in “The Conjuring” franchise. Even with that said, “The Conjuring: Last Rites” is easily the worst film in the franchise for me.

There are many reasons for this, but the main ones are that the movie felt rushed and unpolished, the pacing was sloppy, the acting felt stiff and overall, the movie was simply not scary.

Something that hasn’t sat right with me since watching this movie is how rushed and incomplete it felt and looked. I figured that the movie had a rushed production schedule but, according to the Hollywood Reporter and joblo.com, development began in 2022 with principal filming finishing in late 2024.

This surprised me for a couple reasons, mainly because the CGI was absolutely horrendous, but also because of how loose the writing was. The writing killed the pacing because the movie always felt like there was time to waste. The movie continually felt like there was downtime and I was consistently bored.

To quote my friend Spencer Powell who went to see the movie with me, “I found myself playing Clash Royale in the theatre multiple times.”

The story they seemed like they were trying to tell didn’t really feel like it needed to be told. While this argument could be made for any one of “The Conjuring” movies, I feel as if “Last Rites” is the worst offender simply because of how all-over-the-place it felt.

The only thing I was slightly impressed with was Mia Tomlinson’s portrayal of Judy Warren. There were parts of the movie where I felt for her character solely due to her acting. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as Lorainne and Ed Warren delivered solid performances, on par with their performances in the rest of the series. The rest of the acting, though, could have used some extra work.

The worst offender of this, by far, was Ben Hardy as Judy’s boyfriend, Tony Spera. There were so many lines of his that could’ve used at least one more take. The substantial role he held just exponentiated the issue, and it simply dragged the movie down continuously.

All of this together gave us a final product that was, ultimately, not scary. In favor of staying spoiler-free, I’ll avoid specific details, but my main issues were the writing, the lackluster CGI and the bad acting on supporting characters. These three things are the backbone of horror movies, and when all of them are lacking, the end result suffers.

Overall, I’d rate “The Conjuring: Last Rites” three demons out of 10. There were moments of something, but the movie always leaned toward offering nothing.