THE CONJURING: LAST RITES

Here's the short version: this is one of the most overtly Christian horror movies you'll find in a theater, and it's also a real horror movie. Ed and Lorraine Warren fight their demon with prayer, the Holy Trinity, Jesus's name, and Scripture — not gadgets or luck — and the film treats their faith as the actual source of their power. It extols marriage, family loyalty, and the duty to help others even at cost to yourself. That's rare, and it's worth honoring.

It's also genuinely scary, with plenty of bloody visions — an ax murderer, a woman's head bludgeoned, blood pouring from ordinary household objects — plus a handful of strong obscenities and profanities, some directed at Christ's name in fear rather than reverence. None of that is for children or sensitive viewers.

If you're an adult who can watch intense horror without it harming your conscience, and you want a story where the Gospel actually does the heavy lifting, this one delivers. If you're choosing for kids or teens under the "older teenagers" line, wait and choose something else.

Ed and Lorraine Warren, a married Catholic lay couple, have stepped back from exorcism work after a health scare — but a family in Pennsylvania is reporting a demonic infestation in their home, tied to an old mirror. When the Warrens' grown daughter, Judy, hears about the case, she goes to help. Her father, mother, and fiancé follow — and find a fight bigger, and closer to home, than any of them expected.

Four stars means this is Movieguide's strongest recommendation, and the film earns it on craft: it tells both an epic, decades-spanning struggle with a demon and an intimate story about two families, weaving them together so that the fight abroad ends up drawing the Warren family closer at home. The scares are effective and sustained — visions of past violence, objects turned menacing, dread that builds rather than just startles. It's a confident, well-constructed entry in the series, with a script that gives its faith content real weight rather than treating it as set decoration.

This film exalts what Scripture exalts: prayer that actually works, the name of Jesus wielded in genuine authority, the Trinity invoked without irony, and a marriage that holds under supernatural pressure. Judy tells her skeptical father that helping people in danger — even demonic danger — is their Christian duty, "even if it means putting themselves at risk," and the film treats that conviction as heroic rather than naive. It's a strong, positive message for any viewer, Christian or not.

The Catholic lay context shapes some details — a priest leads confirmation, a funeral, a wedding, and assists in the exorcism — but nothing here creates real friction with Protestant or Eastern Orthodox belief. The demon is real, evil is real, and it's defeated by calling on God, not by technology or cleverness.

The cost of that clarity is intensity: the film uses genuine fear — bloody visions, an ax murderer's violence, objects turned hostile — as its instrument, and the movie itself argues the demon's power runs on fear. That's a thematically honest choice, but it makes this a film for steady adult nerves, not family movie night.

Underneath the scares is an old human ache: the fear that darkness might have the last word over the people we love. Scripture answers that fear directly — "Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4).

This is a horror movie that takes prayer, Scripture, and the name of Jesus seriously — and takes its scares seriously too. It's well-made, honestly frightening, and unmistakably on the side of faith and family. Our answer stands: worth the trip — adults only. Choosing for a family movie night instead? Start with our latest family-friendly picks.