Conjuring: Last Rites (2025): Ending Explained

As Luna Sterling, I've spent years dissecting the shadows of cinema, where the flicker of a screen can unearth the deepest chills of the human psyche. The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025), the ninth chapter in the ever-unsettling Conjuring universe, plunges us into the damp, echoing dread of the real-life Smurl haunting. Directed by Michael Chaves with a script that coils like fog around your ankles, this film doesn't just scare—it seeps into your bones, blending visceral terror with the quiet ache of family bonds tested by the unseen. If you're here for the Conjuring: Last Rites ending explained, buckle up: we'll unravel the final act's literal horrors, peel back its symbolic layers, and explore how it leaves you staring into the mirror long after the credits roll.

Quick Recap

The film opens in 1964 with Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, reprising their haunted gravitas) investigating a cursed antique mirror in a dimly lit curio shop. The air thickens with foreboding as Lorraine, pregnant and vulnerable, collapses under a vision of a malevolent entity threatening her unborn child. Rushed to the hospital amid screeching tires and labored breaths, she delivers a stillborn daughter—only for her fervent prayers to coax life back into the tiny form, naming her Judy. This miracle, laced with the metallic tang of blood and the faint cry of revival, sets the tone for a legacy of defiance against the darkness.

Fast-forward twenty-two years to 1986 in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, where the Smurl family—Jack and Janet, their parents Mary and John, four daughters (Dawn, Heather, and twins Carin and Shannon), and their loyal dog Simon—settle into a duplex that soon warps into a labyrinth of nightmares. A gift of that same antique mirror for Heather's confirmation unleashes chaos: crashing lights, guttural whispers in the walls, and apparitions that claw at the edges of sanity. The family endures poltergeist fury and shadowy figures—an elderly woman with hollow eyes, a younger specter dripping resentment, and a axe-wielding man whose swings echo like thunder in a confined space.

Retired but restless, the Warrens grapple with Ed's faltering heart and Judy's burgeoning psychic sensitivity, now a young woman engaged to Tony. When Father Gordon's investigation into the Smurls ends in demonic-induced suicide, Judy defies warnings and races to the fray, drawing her parents back into the abyss. Lorraine uncovers the mirror's grim history: a husband who murdered his wife and mother-in-law, their restless spirits now puppets for a cunning demon that thrives on fractured families and unspoken sins.

What Happens in the Ending

The climax builds in the Smurl home like a storm gathering humidity, the air heavy with the scent of sulfur and splintered wood. Judy, lured by the demon's insidious whispers—promises of clarity amid the chaos—is tricked into the attic, a cramped aerie where dust motes dance like lost souls in the slivers of moonlight piercing the eaves. The entities converge: the elderly woman's gnarled hands grasp at Judy's throat, the younger woman's wail pierces like shattered glass, and the axe-man's blade whistles through the dimness, forcing Judy to stumble backward. She tumbles down the attic stairs in a cascade of thuds and splintering banisters, her body crumpling at the base like a discarded puppet, blood trickling from a gash on her temple as the house seems to pulse with malevolent laughter.

Ed and Lorraine burst in, Tony at their heels, the family's desperate cries echoing through the halls slick with unnatural chill. Lorraine, her eyes glazing with visions that taste of iron and regret, identifies the demon's core: not just the murderers' ghosts, but a primordial force feeding on generational trauma, amplified by the mirror's reflective curse. Ed, heart pounding like a war drum despite his frailty, performs a makeshift exorcism in the living room, the space transformed into a battlefield of flickering candlelight and overturned furniture. The demon manifests fully—a swirling vortex of shadow and rage, its voice a guttural rasp that rattles windows and bones—possessing Jack Smurl briefly, forcing him to swing wildly at his own kin.

In a tense standoff, Lorraine confronts the entity directly, her prayers a steady rhythm against the cacophony, while Judy stirs, her revived sensitivity allowing her to sever the mirror's hold by smashing it with a family heirloom cross, shards exploding like brittle memories. The demon howls, its form dissipating in a gust that smells of charred earth, banishing the spirits and leaving the house in eerie silence. As dawn creeps in, pale light filtering through cracked panes, the Smurls huddle together, the Warrens collapse in exhausted relief, and Judy shares a quiet, tear-streaked embrace with her parents— the haunting broken, but scars etched deep.

The Meaning Behind the Ending

At its core, the ending of Conjuring: Last Rites symbolizes the fragile tether between the living and the damned, where mirrors aren't just objects but portals to the psyche's underbelly—reflecting not faces, but the sins we bury. The demon's defeat through Judy's act of shattering the antique isn't mere destruction; it's a metaphor for breaking cycles of violence, echoing the 1964 stillbirth and revival as a rebirth from inherited curses. The psychological tension peaks in that attic fall, a visceral plummet representing the terror of losing control, much like Lorraine's labor pains years prior—birth and death intertwined in a sweaty, breathless dance.

Thematically, it underscores faith as a double-edged blade: a weapon against the supernatural, yet a burden that isolates. The demon's manipulation of family ties—pitting ghosts against the living—mirrors real hauntings' emotional toll, suggesting evil preys on doubt and division, resolved only through collective vulnerability. That final silence, broken by soft sobs and the dog's tentative whine, evokes a cathartic release, the house's oppressive atmosphere lifting like fog after rain, leaving a lingering unease about what reflections might still lurk.

Character Arcs and Resolution

Ed and Lorraine's journey culminates in redemption amid frailty; Ed's heart condition, a ticking shadow throughout, forces him to confront mortality, his exorcism a defiant stand that solidifies his role as the grounded anchor to Lorraine's ethereal visions. Lorraine evolves from protective mother to empowered seer, her warnings to Judy transforming into shared strength, resolving her arc by passing the torch without losing her own light— a quiet victory over the fear that once stole her child's first breath.

Judy's arc, from sheltered sensitive to courageous investigator, peaks in her fall and resurgence, mirroring her miraculous birth: vulnerability breeds resilience. The Smurls, terrorized from domestic bliss to primal survival, find resolution in unity—Jack's possession broken not by isolation, but by Janet's unyielding grip—emphasizing how hauntings erode but ultimately reaffirm family bonds. Tony's steadfast support adds a layer of normalcy, grounding the supernatural in human love, while the daughters' wide-eyed survival hints at a legacy unscarred, if watchful.

Alternate Interpretations

The ending's ambiguity lies in that final hush—is the demon truly vanquished, or merely dormant, waiting for the next fractured reflection? One reading posits a psychological twist: the hauntings as manifestations of the Smurls' repressed grief and tensions, with Judy's "visions" a hereditary delusion, the smashing of the mirror symbolizing therapy over exorcism. The demon's rasp could echo internal voices, the fall a metaphor for mental collapse, suggesting the Warrens enable rather than heal.

Alternatively, a bleaker view sees incomplete victory; the entities' banishment leaves psychic residue, implied by Lorraine's lingering glance at a shard—hinting the curse rebounds on the Warrens, tying into series lore where no win is absolute. This open-ended chill invites debate: supernatural triumph or illusory peace?

Themes and Symbolism

The ending reinforces The Conjuring series' core themes of faith versus fear, subverting the trope of isolated heroes by weaving in generational continuity—Judy's rhyme from childhood becomes a talisman, symbolizing inherited wisdom as both curse and salvation. The axe-man evokes violent legacies, the women's ghosts maternal betrayal, all puppets to the demon's web, critiquing how trauma festers in silence. Symbolically, the mirror's shards scatter like fragmented truths, illuminating how evil thrives in distortion, while the house itself—once a dream turned nightmare—represents the domestic as battleground, its creaking floors and dim corners amplifying psychological dread. Ultimately, it subverts horror's finality, leaving a subtle tension that the darkness within us mirrors the dark outside.

Final Thoughts

Conjuring: Last Rites delivers an ending that lingers like a half-remembered nightmare, blending heart-pounding literal terror with profound emotional resonance. It works masterfully by tying personal loss to cosmic evil, making the Smurl home feel like an extension of our own vulnerabilities—the chill of an unexplained draft, the weight of unspoken regrets. While some may crave more unambiguous closure, this atmospheric ambiguity heightens the immersion, ensuring the film's shadows follow you home. If the Conjuring series proves anything, it's that some rites never truly end; they evolve, whispering from the edges of the frame. A fitting, if unnerving, capstone to the Warrens' legacy.