Ed, Tony, and Lorraine in The Conjuring: Last Rites.Image via Warner Bros.
By
Sam Barsanti
Published 29 minutes ago
Sam Barsanti has written about pop-culture for 10 years, and his work has appeared at The A.V. Club, Primetimer, IGN, and Collider. He has also contributed to the popular daily Hustle newsletter, which covers tech and startup news.
He'll happily talk to anyone about comic book movies (he thinks the MCU peaked with Captain America: The Winter Soldier) and giant robots (he thinks some of the Transformers movies are good), and he canonically exists in The CW's "Arrowverse" series of superhero shows.
Sam is also a published poet and horror writer, and his fiction work has appeared on The No Sleep Podcast.
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The Conjuring: Last Rites — now a streaming hit on HBO Max — explicitly presents itself as the final adventure for series heroes Ed and Lorraine Warren (played, as always, by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). For a series built on ominous visions of future horrors and the constant, tormenting presence of evil ghosts and demons, it seems to be setting up a final showdown between the Warrens and the assembled armies of Hell to decide the ultimate fate of the universe. In reality, the final battle isn’t quite so big, but Last Rites does end by taking a page directly out of the Avengers: Endgame playbook.
The all-time-great superhero blockbuster was actually a point of inspiration during the development of the film, with director Michael Chaves and producer Peter Safran (who now co-runs the new DC Studios label with James Gunn) revealing that they did once envision the movie ending with an epic final battle between the Warrens and all the ghostly villains they’d faced in the previous three movies. Instead, what they ultimately went with is something a little more small-scale and personal for the Warrens, culminating in a final battle that is more about their strength as a family than anything else. Still, that doesn’t mean some bones from Endgame aren’t in there, specifically in the film’s emotional final scenes.
‘The Conjuring: Last Rites’ Pulls an ‘Endgame,’ but Not the Way You Think
Mia Tomlinson as Judy Warren in 'The Conjuring: Last Rites'Image Via Warner Bros.
One of the final scenes in Avengers: Endgame is the funeral of Tony Stark, with the main heroes from every corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (the Guardians of the Galaxy, T’Challa, Steve Rogers, the Ant-Man squad, the little kid from Iron Man 3) all showing up in black suits to say goodbye to the guy who launched the franchise. Mark Ruffalo was famously told they were filming a wedding scene in order to avoid having the cast spoil why everyone was dressed up, but that’s exactly what Last Rites has: At the end of the latest (and last) ghostly adventure for Ed and Lorraine, their daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson) marries her boyfriend Tony (Ben Hardy) and seemingly everyone the Warrens ever met shows up to celebrate.
It might take viewers a second to catch on to what they’re seeing, but Conjuring fans should quickly notice Lili Taylor and Mackenzie Foy from the first movie, Frances O’Connor and Madison Wolfe from the second, and Julian Hilliard from The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. Eagle-eyed viewers will even spot James Wan, the creator of the series and the director of the first two movies (if he’s going to appear in any horror franchise he helped create, it’s better for it to be this one than Saw).
The scene serves essentially the same purpose as the similar scene in Endgame, albeit with a more celebratory angle, by paying tribute to the actors and characters who helped make this series so successful (Last Rites quietly made almost $500 million) and giving fans a chance to do the “Leo pointing at the screen” meme when they recognize everybody (it’s also nice to know that, for as scary things were in their individual movies, they’re all doing okay now). It would’ve been nice for Valak or The Crooked Man to show up and bury the hatchet with the Warrens, but some evil demons just can’t resist holding a grudge.
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The Conjuring: Last Rites
Like Follow Followed R Horror Release 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 Producers Peter Safran, James Wan
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Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, and Ben Hardy on the street in The Conjuring: Last Rites
Lorraine Warren in a pool of blood in The Conjuring: Last Rites.
The Axeman looks out in The Conjuring Last Rites.
A scary old woman smiling next to Judy in The Conjuring Last Rites.
madison lawlor and orion smith as young lorraine and ed warren in the conjuring last rites
Mia Tomlinson as Judy Warren in The Conjuring: Last Rites
The demon appearing as an old woman in The Conjuring Last Rites.Close
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Vera Farmiga
Lorraine Warren
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Patrick Wilson
Ed Warren
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