Last Rites, According To The Director [Exclusive]

This article discusses spoilers for “The Conjuring: Last Rites.”

“The Conjuring: Last Rites” was one of the scariest horror movies of 2025, a claim which is supported by the film’s massively impressive box office take. Of course, this comes as little surprise, because “Last Rites” is the ninth (or tenth, depending on your count) movie in the Conjuring universe, and it’s a franchise that has made its bones on scaring the pants off folks. Over the course of the series, which has included the main four “Conjuring” films, three “Annabelle” movies, and two “The Nun” films, there’s been an unofficial competition amongst the various directors as to who can top the other when it comes to staging a new scary setpiece. Ironically, director Michael Chaves has been competing not just with folks like James Wan and David F. Sandberg, but himself, as he’s directed the last two “Conjuring” entries (including “Last Rites”) as well as “The Nun II.”

As such, Chaves has clearly become adept at singling out setpieces that work. While “Last Rites” boasts several moments that have the power to get under your skin, in Chaves’ opinion, there’s a clear winner amongst them. According to a recent chat the director had with /Film’s Jacob Hall, Chaves’ pick for the best scare in the film is the sequence where the now-adult Judy Warren (Mia Tomlinson) tries on a dress for her upcoming wedding, and is left alone inside a dressing room which is full of reflective mirrors. While there, she has a vision of a demon wearing her face stalking and attacking her. It’s a well-staged, expertly executed scare setpiece, and it’s made all the more creepy and memorable thanks to Chaves’ cinematic techniques.

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The wedding dress mirror room scene blends classic cinema with contemporary horror themes

In 1947, director Orson Welles realized the hypnotic, disorienting, and purely cinematic potential of a series of funhouse mirrors, using them in a classic setpiece within “The Lady from Shanghai.” Ever since then, there have been numerous sequences based around a series of reflective mirrored surfaces, with some becoming iconic moments in their own right, such as the final fight in “Enter the Dragon.” Certainly, it’s not been lost on horror film directors that the experience of being lost in the middle of a seemingly never-ending mirrored world is inherently freaky. Numerous horror movies, from 1959’s “Horrors of the Black Museum” to 2019’s “It: Chapter Two,” make use of the eerie power of multiple mirrors.

It just so happens that the mirror room sequence in “Last Rites” isn’t merely Chaves paying homage to cinematic history, however. The setpiece is also an encapsulation of much of the movie’s themes. The plot of the film concerns a demon living inside a “conjuring mirror” that Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) encountered on one of their first cases, allowing the demon to target their family, especially Judy. The sequence involves an allusion to this longtime adversary, Judy’s struggle with trying to shut out her psychic abilities (as per Lorraine’s advice), and the foreshadowing of Judy’s demonic possession, all while being a freaky little moment on its own. It’s no wonder that, in the version of “Last Rites” formatted for IMAX theaters, it’s a sequence that is expanded to the full IMAX ratio, indicating to the audience that this is a scene to watch out for.

Michael Chaves named the mirror room sequence his favorite of his ‘Conjuring’ work

Hall asked Chaves if he had a favorite of his, and he wasted no time. “I love the wedding dress mirror room sequence. That’s absolutely my favorite,” Chaves said. When Hall asked Chaves what scare in the film might be considered for a “top five Conjuring universe scare,” Chaves was sure to highlight several alternative sequences in the film before landing on his clear winner. As he explained:

I mean, there’s a lot of like, in terms of like, bang for your buck … The scene at the end of the bed, the succubus attack where Jack gets levitated, the scene where it reveals she’s at the end of the bed, it always gets the biggest response in the theater. So in terms of bang for your buck, it’s such a simple moment, but it really, really works. But, I still go back to the the wedding dress mirror room sequence. I loved making that, and I just think it looks awesome.”

Indeed, the other sequence in the film Chaves mentions, in which a succubus suddenly appears before Jack Smurl (Elliot Cowan), is far and away the best and most effective jumpscare in the movie. Yet while it’s a fantastic jolt, the wedding dress mirror room scene sticks with you long after its initial scares are done. It’s thanks to its grounding in the film’s themes, its nod to cinematic history, and Chaves’ own prowess behind the camera, that it has such eerie power. If it’s true that “Last Rites” is to be the final outing for Ed and Lorraine, then at least it can be said that “The Conjuring” went out with a smash hit on numerous levels.

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Read the original article on SlashFilm.