October is the month known for its fall weather and the holiday, Halloween! When it’s October, I reminisce about the nice chilly weather, the change of color on the leaves, pumpkin or cinnamon flavored snacks, and even horror movies. A specific franchise I will be talking about is the horror film series The Conjuring and the universe within it.
Something that makes the Conjuring film series interesting is that it’s based off of a true story! Ed and Lorraine Warren were the main characters in The Conjuring. They have covered a lot of the famous supernatural cases around the world and the film reenacts the events that happened to them in real life. The Conjuring became such a hit that it also spawned sequels and spin offs, such as The Conjuring 2 and 3, Annabelle, and The Nun.
The first film of the series is The Conjuring, which was released in 2013. It centers around the Perrin family who moved into a new home, and it turned out to be haunted. We get introduced to Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are certified demonologists. They know what to do when it comes to handling these types of situations.
Annabelle is the second movie to the franchise that came out in 2014. The movie does refer back to the Warren’s investigating, a haunted doll, but goes into details specifically about a couple and their child. The movie has most of the horror movie tropes in it, but personally the way it was executed was not great.
Conjuring 2 came out in 2016. It follows the couple going to England to meet the Hodgkin family, who moves into the new home and experiences paranormal activity. This specific movie does things that other movies do not do, such as the personal hauntings. The hauntings are not isolated to just the family, but also to other witnesses, making this case receive national recognition.
Next is, Annabelle: Creation, released in 2017. It follows a group of girls going to a new orphanage- in a house that the Mullins family owns. Strange things happen to the home and Annabelle is created. There are also moments in the movie that connect the other movies I mentioned before. For example, the way they made the layout shots in the movie was just like how they did for The Conjuring. They even planting seed to set up for the later movies.
The Nun centers around an unconfirmed nun and a priest who traveled to Romania in order to discover if a castle is still a holy place. This film came out in 2018, but takes place in the 1950s, making it the earliest film in the franchise.
The Curse of La Llorona released in 2019, is about a social worker who checks on a family whose mother has endangered her children. The directors and producers say it is not apart of the Conjuring universe, but because there are some of the same characters, locations, and references to other movies, it kind of does tie to the franchise.
Annabelle Comes Home released in 2019 is one of the first movies where Ed and Lorraine Warren get involved more than a cameo outside of the The Conjuring films. The movie starts off with what was left off in the first Conjuring film and mentions more about their daughter and the babysitter’s encounter with Annabelle. This movie enhances more on the Warrens and the artifact room that is apart of most of The Conjuring movies.
Finally, Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, released in 2021, was different as this movie does not just revolve around a haunted house but is about a court case. Arne Johnson was arrested for murder, but he claims he was possessed by a demon. With the help of the Warrens, they try to uncover the truth.
What is interesting about the entirety of The Conjuring series is that the characters are awsre of their actions. When discussing how they connect with one another, there are two ways to consider: the Annabelle and the Valak way. In the Valak way, the timeline starts off with, The Nun, in which one of the characters from, The Nun travels to America and meets Ed and Loraine, because of his possession. Valak escapes the guy and starts tormenting Lorraine, showing visions about her husband. Then they go to London in The Conjuring 2 where they find Valak has taken ahold of the family.
In the Annabelle way, it all starts off with, Annabelle: Creation. The couple lets out a demon by the name of Malthus which possesses a doll and the Mullins family, then opens a foster home and the demon terrorizes the girls in the home. The nun who watches over them shows a photo of the nuns back in Romania, hence The Nun gets connected. Then 19 years later, it shows the girls in that home all grown up and one of the girls terrorizes the couple from the beginning. Then the Annabelle doll is bought by a mother and was gifted to her daughter, who called Ed and Loraine after the doll begins terrorizing her and her roommate. After bringing the doll back to the Warren house, the conjuring events happen.
Overall, this franchise is one of the most interesting ones when it comes to horror, because the characters are not clueless like in other horror movies. The characters make it more fun to watch. Check them out this spooky season.