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The Conjuring: Last Rites
Movie

The Conjuring: Last Rites

2025 • Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Woke Score
3.8
out of 10

Plot

Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren take on one last terrifying case involving mysterious entities they must confront.

Overall Series Review

The movie "The Conjuring: Last Rites" operates within the familiar framework of its franchise, centering on paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren as they face a terrifying final case. The narrative is heavily focused on family and Christian faith as bulwarks against demonic forces. However, the film shifts the source of ultimate power, transitioning the central conflict from a battle won purely by transcendent faith and traditional rites to one resolved by the personal, innate psychic abilities of the female characters. The primary male hero, Ed Warren, is incapacitated by a heart condition for much of the climax, allowing the torch to be passed to his daughter, Judy, who inherits her mother's unique psychic gift. The ending suggests that the individual "inner awesomeness" of the women provides a potency that organized religion’s most sacred rituals can only slow down, not defeat. This thematic substitution elevates individual, internal power over institutional and divine power, despite the overall surface-level reverence for Catholicism. The core themes revolve around traditional family units and their defense against evil, with no apparent inclusion of identity politics or queer theory.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

The story centers on two white families and the original investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren. Character focus remains entirely on merit, experience, and spiritual giftedness, not on intersectional characteristics or hierarchy. There is no evidence of race-swapping or lecturing on privilege.

Oikophobia2/10

The film upholds the American nuclear family and the home as a sacred institution, making its defense against spiritual chaos the central theme. The narrative treats traditional institutions like marriage and the Church with respect, framing them as necessary shields against malevolent forces. The terror comes from a demon invading the home, not from the home's corrupt foundation.

Feminism7/10

The score is elevated because the male lead, Ed Warren, is incapacitated by a heart condition, forcing the female leads, Lorraine and Judy, to take center stage in the climactic fight. The narrative resolution explicitly relies on the women's 'inner awesomeness' and individual psychic power, a 'Girl Boss' trope, which proves more effective than the traditional religious exorcism rites performed by the men. However, the celebration of the nuclear family through Judy's upcoming wedding slightly mitigates the anti-natalist score.

LGBTQ+1/10

The narrative's focus is solely on heterosexual relationships and the defense of the nuclear family unit—the Warrens and the Smurls—as well as the engagement and subsequent wedding of Judy Warren and Tony Spera. No evidence suggests the inclusion or centering of alternative sexual ideologies, deconstruction of the nuclear family, or gender theory.

Anti-Theism8/10

The score is high because the traditional Christian elements, which are central to the franchise, are significantly undermined in the climax. The priest, Father Gordon, is defeated and led to commit suicide, showing the Church's representative as powerless. The film's final defeat of the demon relies not on the 'Prayer to Saint Michael' or the Church's exorcism ritual, but rather on the raw, personal, individual 'psychic power' of Lorraine and Judy, which is presented as the more potent force against evil.