Following the hype of Michael Chaves’ The Conjuring: Last Rites, I expected a powerful finale, a haunting showdown, and a satisfying conclusion to the Warrens’ story. But right from the start, I realized that this film was going to leave more questions than answers. And rightfully so, despite being the last chapter of the franchise, Last Rites ended with more unanswered questions than ever.
From wondering who the Mirror Demon was to how it influenced Father Gordon’s suicide, I was overwhelmed with disappointment and frustration over so many unanswered questions when I left the theater. I believe, for a movie marketed as the final chapter, The Conjuring: Last Rites failed to tie up the supernatural chaos and the Warrens’ decades-long story in any meaningful way. For a film promising the ultimate showdown with the Warrens’ deadliest case, it ended up feeling incomplete, rushed, and far weaker than it deserved to be.
The table contains basic details about The Conjuring: Last Rites:
| Movie | The Conjuring: Last Rites |
| Director | Michael Chaves |
| Cast | Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy |
| Runtime | 2h 15m |
| Rotten Tomatoes Score (so far) | 56% |
| Release Date | September 5, 2025 |
So, here’s a breakdown of all the plot holes and questions The Conjuring: Last Rites left hanging, in my opinion.
1. What Happened to the Antique Store Woman?
Michael Chaves’ The Conjuring: Last Rites opens with young Ed and Lorraine Warren (heavily pregnant with Judy), taking on a haunted case brought to them by an antique store owner. The woman’s father had recently committed suicide after being tormented by spirits that she refused to believe in.
This case then introduced us and the Warrens to the Victorian mirror, which would later reveal itself as the main demon haunting the story. But after Lorraine touches the mirror and establishes a connection with the demon, causing her to go into labor, the movie never shows the Warrens returning to the antique store.
Which means the case was left completely unresolved on-screen. I mean, yeah, it was, after all, the Warrens later confessed about quitting the case. So what happened to the store owner? Did she survive? And if she did, how did she manage to live while being haunted by such a powerful entity?
It also raises another question: if the woman could somehow survive on her own, why call the Warrens in the first place? The movie never explains whether the demon moved on, stayed, or finally left her alone. This loose end left me frustrated, as a major plot thread got simply dropped without any closure.
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2. Why Did the Mirror Demon Claim Judy’s Soul Instead of Lorraine’s?
Another aspect of the first case with the Victorian mirror left me really confused. After Lorraine touched the mirror, she suddenly had a vision of the demon trying to claim her unborn daughter Judy’s soul. It triggered her labor, and she was rushed to the hospital. Therein, with obstructed airflow by the umbilical cord, Judy came out as a stillborn.
That’s when we see a demonic hand reaching out for Judy’s lifeless body. But soon Lorraine grabs onto Judy and starts praying, which thankfully leads her to revive back to life. But from that moment, we see the demon haunting Judy for her entire life, leading up to the showdown.
So now, here’s what I can’t wrap my head around: why didn’t the demon go after Lorraine herself? I mean, based on the Conjuring 2 theory, I understand why Valak tried to scare Lorraine by targeting Ed, because during that case, Lorraine was far more experienced with handling demons, and she also knew Valak’s name.
I’m still thinking about this scene in #TheConjuringLastRites cuz this demon probably took Improv classes, so it can pretend to sew Judy’s dress to scare her 🤣
It’s even holding a needle LMAO 🪡 pic.twitter.com/1fUc2i15AC
— I Post What I Want 🪬 (@Sye_Lokata) September 8, 2025
But here, Lorraine was inexperienced and vulnerable. Plus, she didn’t even know the demon’s name, which gave it an upper hand on Lorraine. So, the mirror demon could have gone after her directly and ended the case instantly. Yet it focused on Judy, and left me wondering why it didn’t just claim Lorraine, which would have made the whole story even more terrifying and clear.
3. Why the Mirror Demon Left the Antique Store But Stayed With the Smurls?
Now, this part of the story really got me thinking. After the Warrens left the antique store and abandoned the case with the demonic mirror, years later, the Smurls family ended up with that same spooky Victorian mirror. It was brought into their home as a birthday gift for Heather, bought at a yard sale by her grandparents.
So someone must have moved the mirror out of the antique store and somehow sold it to the Smurls. But then things get even stranger. The young girls in the Smurl family tried to throw the mirror out, and the waste management people dumped it in their car and crushed it. Yet somehow, the mirror ended up back in the Smurls’ attic.
Which means the mirror wasn’t willing to leave the Smurls, yet it left the antique store. But why? Okay, let’s assume, as Lorraine claims, the mirror had been trying to find its way to Judy. But then, here’s what I don’t understand: if the mirror had the power to restore itself and return to the Smurls’ attic without anyone noticing, why didn’t it make its way into the Warrens’ house instead?
And why did it choose to terrorize the Smurls to attract the Warrens, so Judy would appear, instead of targeting another family living much closer to the Warrens? Plus, there’s another strange moment: at the very end, when Jack Smurls and Ed try to take the mirror to the Warren museum, it resists violently and almost attacks Jack.
So why didn’t it resist the first time Heather and her sister tried to throw it out? The mirror’s behavior was so inconsistent and confusing, making me wonder why it acted one way with some people and completely differently with others. And Michael Chaves didn’t bother to explain either.
4. Why Didn’t the Warrens Bother to Banish the Demon Haunting Judy?
Now, after Lorraine touched the mirror and unknowingly created a connection between the demon, herself, and Judy, both mother and daughter have been haunted by visions of the demon. Throughout the first half of the slow-burning horror, we watch Judy grow up struggling with terrifying visions of demons and spirits.
Also, throughout the film, we see Lorraine as a devoted, world-class mother, doing everything she can to protect her daughter, except for what’s actually needed. I mean, we see Lorraine beg, and pray, and cry, and even act helpless, but we never see her trying to find who that demon is that’s been haunting her little girl.
Trust me, throughout the film, it left me wondering why Lorraine didn’t try to protect her family from these demonic apparitions like she helped other families in previous cases. In fact, after the first Conjuring, where we see Judy being haunted by the Annabelle doll, Last Rites manifests that trauma in a sequence with her doll.
and why exactly do they keep recasting Judy Warren in The Conjuring films?? McKenna Grace was a great recast and they should’ve just kept her. #TheConjuring pic.twitter.com/8CiApEHZDM
— john | michael (@john_michvel) May 8, 2025
Which means Judy was visibly tormented and traumatized by these spirits, ghosts, and demons since her childhood, due to her parents’ work. So didn’t the Warrens intervene and try to separate these demonic entities from haunting their own daughter, as they do for others? I understand that Lorraine might not have known the mirror demon had fully connected to Judy, but she was very aware of Judy’s visions.
She even witnessed the demonic hand around Judy from birth. So why didn’t she try to investigate who this demon was or actively fight it off? It’s confusing and frustrating because, for a family that has spent decades battling spirits, leaving their own child to suffer without proper intervention just doesn’t make sense.
To make it even more frustrating, Lorraine taught Judy a nursery rhyme to fight these visions. While diligently helping other families, Lorraine left her own daughter to fight off these visuals with a mere rhyme.
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5. What Was the Demon’s Futile Aim of Possessing Judy?
The climax moments of the film left me scratching my head. Like, in the final act, Judy goes up to the attic, touches the mirror, and establishes a direct connection with the demon, like she had been hoping for years. This leads to the demon finally possessing her, trying to kill her in the same way she almost died at birth, by choking off her air and forcing her to hang herself.
Judy actually goes through with it and nearly dies, until Ed and Tony resuscitate her. But here’s the confusing part: once Judy comes back to life, the demon simply leaves her body. After failing to kill her and take her soul, it never tries again. For the rest of the movie, Judy isn’t possessed, which makes the whole possession attempt feel pointless. What was the demon’s actual goal?
It’s a demon, for heaven’s sake, it’s supposed to be terrifying and relentless. Instead, the way Michael Chaves portrayed it made it look strangely weak and inconsistent. If this was truly the Warrens’ “most terrifying case,” why did the demon get only one shot at Judy’s soul and then give up after failing? The entire possession subplot felt baseless and anticlimactic, leaving me wondering what the real point of it even was.
6. How Did the Demon Influence Father Gordon’s Death?
One of the strangest parts of The Conjuring: Last Rites for me was Father Gordon’s death. Let me clarify why. The entire plot of the mirror demon is based on the old Victorian belief that mirrors could trap souls and act as portals to the other world. Horror films like the Mirrors franchise have played with this lore too, showing spirits moving and harming people through reflections.
That’s why the Victorian mirror as the demon’s vessel made sense at first in Michael Chaves’ movie. But then comes Father Gordon’s death, which makes no sense at all. Without a mirror in sight and without the demon holding any physical form, it somehow led to Father Gordon’s death after a simple phone call. Somehow, the demon convinces or influences him to hang himself, just by speaking to him through the telephone.
How exactly does that work? If the demon had the power to travel and kill through phone calls, why didn’t it use the same method to reach Judy, or anyone else it was targeting? This is where the movie felt inconsistent and literally bonkers, as Chaves never bothered to explain the rules around the mirror demon’s powers. If it could attack beyond mirrors, why was it so dependent on the mirror for everyone else?
So for me, Father Gordon’s death ended up being more confusing than scary.
7. Why Didn’t the Demon Release the Spirits on the Warrens During Final Showdown?
Considering how The Conjuring: Last Rites was hyped as the Warrens’ most terrifying case, the mirror demon ended up feeling more laughable than frightening. I mean, throughout the film, we’re shown how powerful it supposedly is. It can restore itself after being destroyed, return to the attic on its own, influence and even kill holy men like Father Gordon, possess Judy, levitate, burn sacred objects, and even guard itself with three spirits, the Axeman, his wife, and his mother-in-law.
And yet, during the big showdown, the demon barely put up a fight. Instead of unleashing the three spirits to overwhelm Ed and Lorraine, or at least distract them while it attacked, the demon just smothered Tony on the floor and set a Bible on fire. That’s it. Compare this to The Conjuring 2, where Valak (the only other demon that the Warrens faced) actively unleashed Bill Wilkins and the Crooked Man to keep the Warrens off balance.
It even blinded Ed temporarily by blasting a steam pipe in his face. Valak’s attacks felt cunning and relentless. The mirror demon, on the other hand, fizzled out within ten minutes of the climax. So why didn’t it use the three spirits against the Warrens? Why didn’t it distract them? For all its supposed powers, the demon felt like the weakest villain in the franchise.
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8. Who is the Mirror Demon?
Everyone who sat through this movie will probably agree with me on this: Michael Chaves completely messed up the plot while trying to give The Conjuring: Last Rites a satisfying ending, all while still keeping the door open for spinoffs. Because one of the biggest flaws was how the film never revealed who the mirror demon actually was.
Throughout the Conjuring universe, we’ve always learned the names of the entities tormenting families. From Bathsheba Sherman in the first film, to Malthus possessing the Annabelle doll, to Valak the Nun, and even Bill Wilkins, the stories felt complete because we knew who or what the Warrens were fighting against. But here, the mirror demon remains nameless.
This seems to be a recurring issue with Chaves. In The Devil Made Me Do It, we never learned the demon’s name either; it simply ended up being called “Arne’s Demon”. And now, in Last Rites, the same thing happens again. Instead of giving the entity an identity, it’s lazily referred to as “the mirror demon,” which feels hollow and unfinished.
That mirror was fuckin them up! Who knew that the final boss of this franchise would be a mirror 😆 Tony is down there, getting his neck and head crushed and the Smurls are nowhere to be found!
👆🚨 SPOILER OPINIONS – #TheConjuring #TheConjuringLastRites 🚨 👇 pic.twitter.com/yow5KYrKbW
— I Post What I Want 🪬 (@Sye_Lokata) September 7, 2025
It’s frustrating to sit through a two-hour, fifteen-minute slow-burning horror film, only to walk out without even learning the villain’s name. Fans deserved at least that level of closure. A name would have given the story weight and a sense of mythology, instead of leaving us with a faceless, inconsistent threat.
Sadly, this final chapter left me high and dry with an inconsistent and laughable demon, a forced happy ending for the Warrens (when in reality the Smurls’ case wasn’t solved), and a nameless entity. While there were several iconic moments in the film, Easter Eggs, cool shots, and thrilling jump scares, The Conjuring: Last Rites overall felt like a missed opportunity.
Share your thoughts on which other aspect of The Conjuring: Last Rites left you wondering.
The Conjuring: Last Rites is currently running in theaters worldwide.
