The Conjuring: Last Rites ending explained: A fitting end to a heroic legacy of the Warrens

The Conjuring: Last Rites brings back Ed and Lorraine Warren for a final encounter with the spiritual world on screen. As it is, horror franchises, with the exception of some, rarely know how to bow out gracefully, but The Conjuring: Last Rites makes its exit with a lot of sentiment and chills.

The Warrens, as we know them, come face to face with one final case that is more personal than anything they have worked on before and ties them to their past.

What follows is a haunting tale and a supernatural presence that threatens the unity of not one, but two families and how they manage to go on after it. Here's what happens in the ending of The Conjuring: Last Rites, and what it means for the Warrens' future.

The horror in The Conjuring: Last Rites

Still from The Conjuring: Last Rites (Image via Warner Bros.)

The Conjuring: Last Rites opens in the 1950s and, for the first time, we get a glimpse at Ed and Lorraine's past and an incident that ended up shaping their lives as parents and ghost hunters.

In 1950, the Warrens were investigating the case of a menacing mirror that throbs with horror. When a pregnant Lorraine dares to touch it, the glass splinters like ice cracking on a frozen lake. She collapses, wracked by a vision of a faceless entity and the fragile heartbeat of her unborn child.

Rushed to the hospital, Lorraine gives birth to a stillborn baby as the two summon every ounce of their faith to save their baby. They succeed, and they name her Judy. In previous films, Judy's character has made appearances multiple times, specifically in Annabelle Comes Home and the first Conjuring movie. Similarly, The Conjuring: Last Rites shows Judy in a more grown-up light, and adds a spin to the horrors that follow the Warren family as they work to save other families from the other world.

Decades later, the story shifts to Pennsylvania, where the Smurl family unpacks their lives into a modest two-story home. The family consists of Jack and Janet Smurl, and the Smurl kids: Dawn, Heather, Carin and Shannon. On Heather’s birthday, her grandfather gifts her a mirror, ordinary in appearance, but already thrumming with the kind of darkness the Warrens once faced.

At first, it’s small things: whispers, shadows where no one stands. Then the house turns predator. A kitchen light crashes on Heather, glass rains down like daggers, and soon Dawn, the eldest daughter, collapses, choking on blood as if the mirror has buried itself inside her. By the time Jack is assaulted by the entity in his own home, the Smurls realize this is not a haunting they can hide. They take their terror to the public, desperate for salvation.

Meanwhile, Judy Warren, now grown, engaged to her sweetheart Tony Spera, and carrying her mother’s psychic burden, begins to feel the pull of the mirror’s curse. Her visions are unrelenting: Annabelle lurking at the edges of her dreams, and an old woman clawing at her in a bridal shop reflection.

When Father Gordon, who tries to help the Smurls, dies violently after facing the entity, Judy’s visions confirm the truth. She knows exactly where he died, and why. Against her parents’ wishes, she abandons their carefully built silence and drives straight into the darkness of Pennsylvania, where one family is already being devoured, and her own past waits to claim her.

How Ed and Lorraine face their past demons in The Conjuring: Last Rites

Ed, Lorraine and Tony follow Judy's trail that leads them straight to the Smurls and the mirror that once threatened their entire lives. It had tried to claim Judy once, and decades later, it's back in their lives, feeding off the fear of the Smurls.

Lorraine immediately senses that there's a larger story to these occurrences and her vision shows her a darker history of the house. The house has seen the murders of two women at the hands of the man in their house: a farmer. But that's not the real horror the house is facing. It's more of a facade to mask something far more demonic. The real horror is still in the mirror: ancient, atrocious, vengeful.

Soon enough, things get more shady as Lorraine is lured in by the mirror and gets locked in the basement. The mirror, as it seems, is aggressively after Judy, attempting to possess her. Despite countless trials, no one is able to move the mirror anywhere as it has gotten itself stuck to the house.

The climax isn’t fought with crucifixes or holy water but with connection. Judy and Lorraine, tethered by blood and psychic strength, confront the entity through the mirror’s warped surface. The glass spins and fractures, forcing them to face grotesque reflections of themselves, their fears made flesh. Side by side, mother and daughter fight. Together, they drive the demon back into a blinding storm of light and shattering glass, leaving the mirror in pieces at their feet.

The Smurls remain scarred but unbroken, determined to reclaim their home. The remnants of the mirror find their way to the Warrens’ occult museum, another cursed relic sealed away.

Ed and Lorraine and Judy get the happy ending they deserve

The film closes with tenderness. Judy walks down the aisle on her father’s arm, marrying Tony in a ceremony watched over by survivors of the Warrens’ past battles. Ed and Lorraine share one final look, a wordless acknowledgment that trust and faith carried them through three decades of darkness.

Like all Conjuring movies, The Conjuring: Last Rites closes on a tender note, as Lorraine shares a vision with Ed of the peaceful years awaiting them: retirement, Judy’s growing family, and the joy of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

After the Smurl case, the Warrens step away from active investigations, turning instead to writing and teaching until tragedy strikes. Ed suffers a stroke at seventy-four, with Lorraine as his devoted caregiver until his passing. She lives on until ninety-two.

Final words on screen acknowledge that while skeptics dismissed their work, the Warrens brought paranormal research into the public eye, followed by real photos and footage of their remarkable lives.