The Only Conjuring Universe Recap You Need Before Watching The Nun 2
Stand back, Marvel Cinematic Universe. Be gone, DC Extended Universe. The power of The Conjuring Universe compels you!
It may astonish those who aren't horror fans or haven't been paying attention, but 2013's "The Conjuring" has not only spawned two direct sequels, but two entire spin-off film franchises that are still going strong: the "Annabelle" series and "The Nun" films. In fact, the latter's latest installment — oh-so-helpfully entitled "The Nun II" — is due to haunt theaters everywhere on September 8, 2023.
If you can't quite recall where and when we last saw the only married demonologist team in the tri-county area, Ed and Lorraine Warren, or if you're having trouble separating your La Lloronas from your Valaks, fear not! The following will not only get you up to speed with the ghouls, demons, and ghosts of The Conjuring Universe, but it will also lay out the tangled timeline of the entire series in chronological order. Join us, won't you, for a satisfying game of Hide and Clap ...
Some spooky Nun-sense, 1952
The "Nun" films are the earliest-set entries in The Conjuring Universe thus far, and as you'll see, there's a pretty good reason for that. Taking place in 1952 Romania, director Corin Hardy's "The Nun" follows the novitiate Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) who, along with Father Burke (Demián Bichir), is ordered by the Vatican to investigate a cloistered abbey where a few nuns have died under mysterious circumstances.
Although the abbey appears to be populated with worried nuns when Irene and Burke arrive, it turns out that Nun — sorry— none of them were real, and were in fact spectral illusions meant to blind Irene and Burke to what's really going on. In the Dark Ages, the abbey was originally a castle built by the Duke of St. Carta, an occultist who summoned a demon before being defeated by Christian knights. In a plot point curiously similar to that of "Twin Peaks" season 3, the side effects of war — bombing attacks during WWII, in this case — unleashed that entity, a demon known as Valak who has decided to take the form of a nun.
Sister Irene (who is made a professed nun during the events of the film) and Burke attempt to banish Valak using the same thing the knights did, a vial filled with the blood of Jesus Christ. Although they appear to be successful, two things reveal that Valak has eluded defeat. One, a local villager known as Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) is shown to be possessed by Valak at the end. Two, the existence of "The Nun II," which is allegedly set in 1956 and follows the further exploits of Sister Irene and the possessed Frenchie.
What a doll, 1957
Where Valak is arguably the Warrens' foremost demonic foe (as we'll see later), giving her a run for her money is Malthus, the malevolent demon whose form of choice is a highly creepy-looking porcelain doll known as Annabelle. The origins of the doll and its subsequent possession are detailed in David F. Sandberg's "Annabelle: Creation."
The film begins in 1943 in Los Angeles County, when toymaker Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Esther (Miranda Otto) are grief-stricken after their young daughter Annabelle aka "Bee" (Samara Lee) is killed in a car accident. Praying fervently to anyone (or anything) that will let them see their daughter again, Malthus answers, in disguise as Bee's spirit, and asks to be transferred to a vessel. The Mullins choose the doll that was to be a gift for Bee, and soon after realize that the spirit inside the doll is not Bee and is most evil, attempting to quell it by sealing it inside a closet covered in pages from the Bible.
12 years later, in 1955, the Mullins allowed Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) and her displaced orphans from a shuttered nearby orphanage to take shelter in their home. Sure enough, one of the orphans, a polio-stricken girl named Janice (Talitha Bateman), frees Annabelle from her closet cage, and the doll proceeds to terrorize her and her friends. The demon possesses Janice, allowing her to walk, and causes the deaths of both Samuel and Esther before Sister Charlotte manages to lock her away in the closet once again.
However, the possessed Janice escapes (through a hole in the wall!) finds her way to another orphanage in Santa Monica, California, and re-names herself Annabelle, whereupon she is adopted by Pete and Sharon Higgins (Brian Howe and Kerry O'Malley).
Helter skelter, 1967
Another 12 years after that is when John R. Leonetti's "Annabelle" begins. Annabelle Higgins (Keira Daniels) has grown up and joined a demonic cult known as The Disciples of the Ram. One night, she goes to murder her adoptive parents, Manson family-style. The Higgins' next-door neighbors, John and Mia Form (Ward Horton and the coincidentally named Annabelle Wallis), overhear the murder before being attacked by Annabelle and her boyfriend. As the police arrive and attempt to subdue the killers, Annabelle slices her own throat while holding (and bleeding on) the porcelain doll that John had recently bought for his pregnant wife.
You know what that means: Annabelle neé Malthus is back in a creepy doll again and makes Mia and John's lives a living Hell. Given that "Annabelle" was made before "Annabelle: Creation," Mia and John seem to learn that the cultists' murder and attack were what summoned a demon that now follows them from place to place (as opposed to Annabelle/Janice already being possessed by the demon). Whatever the case, the Forms have demon problems, issues that are compounded by Mia needing to protect her newborn baby. They simply cannot get rid of Annabelle, and as their friend Father Perez (Tony Amendola) warns, the demon cannot be removed from the doll ... it wants to claim a soul.
Annabelle continues to terrorize Mia in ways that occasionally recall vintage Mario Bava, attempting to drive her so mad that she'll commit suicide and give the demon her soul. Fortunately, Mia's neighbor and friend Evelyn (Alfre Woodard), guilt-stricken by her accidentally killing her own daughter years earlier, sacrifices herself in Mia's place, causing the demon and the doll to disappear.
Six months later, the Annabelle doll is bought by a woman in an antique shop as a gift for her daughter, Debbie, which brings us to...
The Annabelle interlude, 1968
The opening scene of James Wan's "The Conjuring" sees Debbie (Morganna May) and her friend Camilla (Amy Tipton) noticing strange things about the doll Debbie's mother bought for her. After contacting a medium, the spirit surrounding the doll communicated to them that it was the ghost of a 7-year-old girl named Annabelle Higgins who died in their apartment and asked to be allowed to possess the doll. After the two women agreed, the paranormal activity only worsened, and the ladies had to ask themselves that classic question: who ya gonna call?
Enter the Warrens! Patriarch Ed (Patrick Wilson) and matriarch Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) are paranormal investigators extraordinaire. The characters are, of course, based on the two real-life figures of the same names, people whose careers are "controversial" (as the first film's opening crawl puts it) to say the least. From a fictional perspective, Ed and Lorraine function as an update of "The Thin Man" heroes Nick and Nora Charles, their separate skills (Ed is a non-ordained demonologist; Lorraine is a powerful clairvoyant) and personas complimenting each other, both in their work and their marriage.
Ed and Lorraine investigate the Annabelle doll at Debbie and Camilla's behest, discovering that the doll indeed has some bad vibes going on. Informing the women that Annabelle (really Malthus) had been attempting to manipulate the two into allowing it to take over one of their bodies, the Warrens remove the doll, survive its attacks during transport, and place it inside their Occult Museum, locked safely away in a case ... or is it?
Frenchie leads to Bathsheba, 1971
Remember Frenchie? At the end of "The Nun," he was not only possessed by Valak but revealed his real name: Maurice Theriault. Sometime in the mid-1960s, the Warrens were called upon to help perform an exorcism on poor Maurice, a harrowing ordeal during which the Valak-possessed man touched Lorraine (more on that later). The Warrens play that exorcism footage while lecturing in Wakefield, Massachusetts in 1971, a lecture that happens to be attended by Carolyn Perron (Lili Taylor).
In "The Conjuring," Perron hires the Warrens to come investigate her family's new home in Harrisville, Rhode Island, which has been subject to paranormal activity ever since the Perrons moved in. Sure enough, it turns out that the Perron's property was once owned by an accused witch, Bathsheba Sherman, who sacrificed her own child in Satan's name before dying by suicide. Her spirit is unleashed in part thanks to a creepy old music box, and she's able to possess Carolyn in an attempt to force her to kill one (or possibly all) of her five daughters.
Fortunately, the Warrens are able to prove to their own satisfaction that the malevolent spirit of Bathsheba needs to be exorcised. Ed performs the exorcism while Lorraine brings Carolyn back to herself, and the couple manage to banish Bathsheba and her curse, taking the haunted music box and filing it away inside their Occult Museum.
Home sweet home, 1972
As you might surmise, keeping a museum filled with cursed and haunted objects in your home isn't the safest idea — at least the Ghostbusters have the good sense to live away from their ghost containment unit. The Warrens, on the other hand, are living on the edge, and it's not so much their own safety as it is their own daughter's that they end up needing to worry about.
Four years after sequestering the possessed Annabelle doll inside their Occult Museum, their young daughter, Judy (Mckenna Grace), is left to contend with the evil doll during the events of Gary Dauberman's "Annabelle Comes Home." When Ed and Lorraine leave Judy alone at home while they go work on another case, they hire teen babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) to watch her. Mary Ellen brings along her friend, Daniela (Katie Sarife), who recently lost her father and has heard of the Warrens' museum, hoping that something inside it can help her contact his spirit.
That dastardly ol' Annabelle demon plays another one of its tricks, however, manipulating Daniela to set her free. Coming out of her case and doing just fine, Annabelle activates a number of other haunted objects in the Warrens' collection: the Ferryman, the Bride, a Feeley Meeley board game, the Black Shuck, a CRT television that can predict the future, and so on. Through the course of one long night, Daniela is possessed by the Bride, and Judy and Mary Ellen join forces to combat the spirits. Finally, an old recording of Ed exorcising the Bride frees Daniela, and Annabelle is once again locked in her special case, continually awaiting a future moment to perhaps once again wreak some spiritual havoc.
Cry me a river, 1973
"The Curse of La Llorona" is, according to its director Michael Chaves, apparently not supposed to be a part of the Conjuring Universe per se, with the connective tissue in it only intended as Easter egg homages. All due respect to Mr. Chaves, but the connections go beyond a mere Easter egg or two, as you shall see.
A Los Angeles caseworker, Anna (Linda Cardellini), believes that Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velásquez) is abusing her two young sons. After Anna removes the boys from their mother, who is arrested, the kids are mysteriously drowned in a river. Turns out that Patricia was attempting to protect her boys from the curse of La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez), the demonic spirit of a Mexican woman who drowned her sons in 1673 and who now looks like an extra in a My Chemical Romance video while hunting other young boys to drown.
Having done a whoopsie and gotten the curse passed along to her own sons, Anna seeks help and spiritual guidance, turning to Father Perez from "Annabelle," played once again by Tony Amendola. If Michael Keaton's Ray Nicolette connects Quentin Tarantino's "Jackie Brown" and Steven Soderbergh's "Out of Sight" by appearing in both, then Father Perez's appearance is clearly enough to make "La Llorona" a Conjuring Universe joint!
Anyway, Father Perez not only recalls his ordeal with the haunted doll, but he also points Anna in the direction of folk shaman and former priest Rafael (Raymond Cruz), who gives Anna a cross made from a Fire Tree, which was the type of tree that "witnessed" La Llorona's original crime. Through the resilience of Anna and her sons, La Llorona is stabbed through the chest with the cross and defeated.
The Amityville Conjuring, 1976
Speaking of the issue of Easter eggs and crossovers, perhaps the reason why Chaves was hesitant to confirm "La Llorona" as a Conjuring Universe entry was because there's another entire franchise that the series happens to back into. At the beginning of James Wan's "The Conjuring 2," Ed and Lorraine travel to Long Island in order to investigate some grisly murders at an iconic house on Ocean Avenue with bay windows that look like eyes. That's right: "The Conjuring" and "Amityville" have a crossover!
Well, sort of; as you'll recall, these films are based in part on the Warrens' real-life exploits, and in March of 1976 they did indeed check out the Amityville house where Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his family on November 13th, 1974 and, later, the family of George and Kathleen Lutz subsequently experienced paranormal activity (allegedly) in 1975.
The opening of "The Conjuring 2" not only depicts the Warrens' brief inquiry into the whole brouhaha, it makes the Amityville investigation central to the Conjuring Universe's narrative. During a seance at the Ocean Avenue home of the DeFeo's and Lutz's, Lorraine relives the horrific '74 murders before encountering a demonic nun figure. That's right, folks ...
Valak's back, 1977
Back when the Warrens were conducting an exorcism on Frenchie/Maurice, the possessed man grabbed Lorraine, giving her a glimpse of the demon nun Valak as well as a vision of her beloved Ed dying. Upon encountering Valak's spirit during the Amityville seance, Lorraine sees another vision of Ed's death, where his body is impaled by a large wooden spike.
One year later, in 1977, "The Conjuring 2" continues by introducing the Hodgson family, who reside in the London suburb of Enfield. After her daughter Janet (Madison Wolfe) plays with a Ouija board, single mother Peggy Hodgson (Frances O'Connor) and her other children witness increasingly distressing paranormal activity, culminating in Janet being possessed by the spirit of an elderly man, Bill Wilkins.
A number of paranormal investigators, including the Warrens, descend on Enfield to decide whether the activity is a hoax or not. Meanwhile, Lorraine continues to see visions of Ed dying and of Valak, a demon whose name she cannot remember but one which she writes inside her Bible during a trance. Eventually, Lorraine discovers that Wilkins is being manipulated by Valak, who is the true threat to Janet, the Hodgsons, and Ed. Valak appears to have similar powers as the Annabelle demon does, recruiting not just Wilkins' spirit but a "Crooked Man" zoetrope toy to menace her victims.
During a confrontation where Valak has possessed Janet and is attempting to make her die by suicide, Ed saves the girl and Lorraine saves Ed, finding Valak's name in her bible and uttering it before her husband can be impaled like in her visions. Having dominion over the demon, Lorraine condemns Valak straight to Hell. Ed, ever the hoarder, takes the Crooked Man toy as a memento for his Museum.
(Side note: this is the movie where Ed performs an Elvis tune, making it the first in what hopes to be a long string of horror movies where Patrick Wilson sings.)
Devil for the defense, 1981
Four years later in Chaves' "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It," the Warrens are in Brookfield, Connecticut, helping with the exorcism of an 8-year-old boy. The boy's sister, Debbie Glatzel (Sarah Catherine Hook) and her boyfriend, Arne Johnson (Ruairi O'Connor) are present at the event, and things become so dire that Arne invites the demon to inhabit his body instead of the boy's, a transference which Ed witnesses while having a heart attack. Upon reawakening a month later, Ed tells Lorraine about the incident, and Lorraine attempts to warn Debbie and Arne. She's unfortunately too late; the demon makes Arne stab his landlord 22 times. Arne is arrested, and it's up to the Warrens to prove the veracity of his possession — in court!
Making like Mulder and Scully, Ed and Lorraine retrace the demon's steps, finding the initial possession due to a witch's totem that established a curse on the Glatzels. They get more information from a former priest, Kastner (John Noble), who had prior experience studying the cult known as the Disciples of the Ram, of whom Annabelle Higgins was a member! Through Lorraine's gifts, the Warrens find other victims who held totems and were stabbed 22 times and realize that an occultist is behind these curses and killings.
After cross-checking the victims' locations, Ed is briefly possessed at the Warrens' home in Connecticut, and the duo realizes that the occultist must be in the area. They discover that Kastner has a secret daughter, Isla (Eugenie Bondurant), who became bewitched by the occult that her father was researching. Ed and Lorraine search for Isla's altar, knowing that destroying it will stop her curses. Despite Isla enchanting Ed again, the married couple's love prevails, the occultist's altar is destroyed, and Isla is killed by the demon she summoned. A cup from Isla's altar is added to the Warrens' Museum, Arne is convicted of manslaughter instead of murder in the first degree, and the demons are defeated ... for now.
Although "The Nun II" is another prequel to the main "Conjuring" films, given how the Conjuring Universe jumps around in time, it feels safe to say that we haven't seen the last of the Warrens — or their demonic foes — on screen.