The Conjuring: Final Rites – How a Darker Ending May Have Made It a Horror Basic

Michael Chaves’ horror blockbuster The Conjuring: Last Rites has been wildly worthwhile, but it surely might have gone down as among the best fashionable horror motion pictures if it merely adopted by way of on the darkish ending it arrange. The Conjuring: Last Rites has broken multiple box office records in its run by way of September 2025, so the film lauded as the ultimate chapter for the Warrens clearly landed with audiences.

The primary three motion pictures within the franchise featured Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) performing as paranormal gunslingers, discovering themselves known as into battle in opposition to completely different demonic entities and dispatching them earlier than shifting on. The buck lastly stopped with The Conjuring: Final Rites, because the demon they handled is one which had plagued their household since their daughter’s start.

The extra private connection between the demon and their daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) was the central battle within the film, though it was wrapped round a dramatized retelling of the real Smurl family haunting. Their daughter Judy’s involvement was fully fabricated for the film, however there was one other departure from actuality that would have made their ultimate battle against the mirror demon an all-time nice horror finale.

The Conjuring: Final Rites Ought to Have Killed Off Ed Warren

The theatrical ending of The Conjuring: Last Rites noticed the Warrens and their new future son-in-law Tony Spera (Ben Hardy) go head-to-head with the enigmatic mirror demon that had plagued each the Smurl household and Judy Warren in current weeks. The joint psychic energy and prayer of Judy and Lorraine in the end banished the demon, and all 4 survived the onslaught of the haunted mirror.

The film (and this section of The Conjuring sequence) ends with a bright and beautiful wedding ceremony for Judy and Tony, and a imaginative and prescient of the peaceable life that Ed and Lorraine have forward of them. It feels considerably misplaced within the sequence, and whereas I perceive the explanation for ending on such a constructive observe, a superior ending would have seen one of many elder Warrens die.

For 2 motion pictures, Ed Warren’s weakened coronary heart has acted as a roadblock to the Warrens persevering with to pursue paranormal investigation. It actually was foreshadowed as one thing that may finally have an actual influence, particularly on condition that it was framed as one thing attributable to a demonic interplay in The Conjuring: The Satan Made Me Do It.

Having the demon that has haunted the Warren household for greater than 20 years lastly take Ed out of the equation would have been an unbelievable method to show the sheer energy of the demon they have been coping with. Because the member of the duo who carried out exorcisms, it could have made full narrative sense for the demon to need Ed lifeless.

Frustratingly, the film flirts with that precise situation. The demon proves its energy by attacking the Warrens’ long-time ally Father Gordon, and invades his thoughts and physique within the native diocese’s holy workplaces to the purpose that Father Gordon commits suicide. It is the right depiction of simply how unusually highly effective the mirror demon is, however the influence feels lessened by the truth that it kills a minor character.

They even teased a darker ending on the climax, throughout which the demon does in actual fact invoke a cardiac occasion with Ed. As Lorraine confronts the Axe Man entity within the Smurls’ basement, Ed suffers upstairs, however inexplicably recovers and regains the power to face up to the demon’s remaining assault with the mirror.

It might have been an awesome send-off for the character of Ed Warren, even when it does not truly align with what occurred to the true Ed Warren in later life. It additionally would have made Judy and Lorraine battling the demon collectively that rather more highly effective, as they work to not solely save Judy however to avenge Ed.

A Darker Ending May Have Set Up The Franchise’s Future Even Higher

It doesn’t matter what you considered the ending, The Conjuring: Final Rites accomplishes its two key targets: it finishes the narrative surrounding Ed and Lorraine Warren, and it units up the franchise’s future with Judy Warren and her husband Tony. In actuality, Judy Warren and Tony continued in Ed and Lorraine Warren’s footsteps, and nonetheless work as paranormal investigators in some capacities.

It might be straightforward sufficient to have Judy and Tony step into the roles of Ed and Lorraine and preserve proper on rolling with The Conjuring sequence in its present type, operating by way of dramatized and exaggerated variations of the true case recordsdata of the Warrens. Nevertheless, by having a demon kill Ed, you additional justify and supply motivation for Judy and Tony’s pursuit of demons on the planet.

As stunning as the marriage ending was in The Conjuring: Final Rites, it could have had a lot extra significance if, as an alternative of Ed strolling Judy down the aisle, Lorraine was pressured to as a result of Ed wasn’t with them. It is a a lot, a lot darker conclusion to the Warrens’ story, and it clearly would have gone in opposition to the truth that the franchise has loosely stored a grip on over the 4 film.

The creators of The Conjuring motion pictures have confirmed that they haven’t any points diverging from the historic report for the sake of cinema. In actual fact, the very notion of the Warrens as heroic paranormal investigators is taken into account laughable in some circles, as there are lots of who consider the Warrens to be charlatans and con artists, profiting from determined individuals.

Throwing a whole curveball by having Ed die by the hands of a demon would have been a worthy departure from actuality, and given the extensively celebrated sequence an appropriately darkish and grim conclusion. The Conjuring: Final Rites would have acted as a significantly better jumping-off level for the subsequent set of films, which is all however assured given Final Rites‘ unbelievable $400+ million field workplace return.

Launch Date

September 5, 2025

Runtime

135 Minutes

Director

Michael Chaves

Writers

David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, Ian B. Goldberg, Richard Naing, Carey Hayes, Chad Hayes, James Wan