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The Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe aren’t the only ones with entire worlds of adventure mapped out for moviegoers. Horror movie maestro James Wan has also jumped on this bandwagon, creating a universe of horror that had us hooked ever since the first Saw movie. But he has expanded beyond Saw, jumping from twisted human behaviour to supernatural. In 2013’s The Conjuring, he mixes suspense and horror that creates a rollercoaster ride for audiences worldwide and he hasn’t stopped since.
Since The Conjuring, Wan has given us a sequel and two Annabelle movies (Annabelle and Annabelle: Creation). Then, there are the Conjuring spin-offs. The upcoming The Nun has actually made an appearance in The Conjuring 2, but she’ll take centre stage this time around to give us all a proper scare. Beyond that, there’s also The Crooked Man, who also appeared in The Conjuring 2.
On his bold move to create a Conjuring universe, Wan explains, "one of the things that occurred to all of us early on is, they have a superhero universe, why can't we do that in the horror world?" He added, "so many other great stories" not explored in horror films that are too "awesome" not to look into and develop further.”
When he made the first Conjuring, he had already toyed with the thought that there could be a bigger Conjuring universe out there. And he has big dreams of pulling off an Avengers type mash-up movie where all the characters come together.
But before we get there, let’s look at how Wan’s horror movies are inter-connected.
The Conjuring (2013)
The Conjuring universe centres on the pair of paranormal investigators, Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson). They are the real-life ghostbusters, and the cases they investigated in the movies are loosely based on real occurrences. This movie follows them on one of their cases, looking into a serious case of Haunting at the Perron family in the early 70s.
When the movie was shown in the Philippines, some cinemas actually brought in Catholic priests to bless the viewers before the screening due to feedback that some viewers reported of a “negative presence” after watching it.
The Conjuring 2 (2016)
Ed and Lorraine return, this time, they go across the pond to investigate a case in North London, to the home of the Enfields. Taking place six years after the events of the first movie, this sequel centres around a single mother and her four children plagued by a supernatural spirit and appearances of some ghostly sightings, such as the demon Valak, which appears in the form of a creepy nun, and the Crooked Man, based on a nursery rhyme, who terrorised the kids.
These two characters would eventually have movies of their own, telling their back stories. In this movie, Farmiga had to scream so much that she had a swollen lymph node during filming. She sometimes had to scream over 50 takes in a row.
Annabelle (2014)
We first saw the Annabelle doll at the beginning of The Conjuring. The doll itself is placed in Ed and Lorraine’s artefact room, a real place where the couple keeps real items recovered from the cases they’ve investigated. The Annabelle movie is a prequel which told the story of the doll’s origin, involving a young family’s encounter with the Annabelle doll. Since it’s a prequel, the timeline here throws us back to 1967, four years before the events of The Conjuring.
At the end of the movie, just when you think the doll is being rid of, it’s revealed that it isn’t. In the movie, Annabelle is a porcelain doll, but the real Annabelle doll is a large “Raggedy Ann” doll, and the Warrens built a special case to house it in their artefact room, where she still remains today.
Annabelle: Creation (2017)
This isn’t a sequel but more of a prequel to the prequel (Annabelle) of the first instance of the Annabelle doll in The Conjuring. Set 12 years before the events in Annabelle, it tells the beginnings of the doll. Years after the death of their daughter, a doll maker and his wife open their doors to a nun and a few girls from a closed orphanage into their home. The newcomers soon find themselves the target of the doll maker’ possessed doll. And did we mention his late daughter’s name was Annabelle?
With this second Annabelle movie being another success, there is going to be a third Annabelle movie, slated for a summer 2019 release.
Conjuring Spin-off: The Nun
Her appearance as Valak was brief in Annabelle: Creation, but gained more screen time in The Conjuring 2, hell-bent on scaring the wits out of Lorraine. She made enough of an impact to have her own movie. And now we find out about the creepy nun’s back-story. Set in 1952, The Nun is now the earliest in the timeline of The Conjuring Universe.
In this movie, Taissa Farmiga (incidentally, she is the sister of Vera Farmiga, who plays Lorraine Warren in The Conjuring movies) plays a novice on the threshold of her final vows. Together with a priest with a haunted past, they were being sent by the Vatican to investigate a death of a young nun in Romania. And this is where they face a demon in the form of a demonic nun. The nun in question is played by actress/writer Bonnie Aarons, who also played the nun in both Annabelle: Creation and The Conjuring 2 but she was uncredited in both. Incidentally, Aarons is also a co-writer for The Conjuring 2.
Conjuring Spin-off: The Crooked Man
From the children’s nursery rhyme, “There was a Crooked Man”, this character appeared in The Conjuring 2, where he morphed from the body of a dog, recited the rhyme, followed by possessing one of the girls in the Enfield home. The original rhyme goes like this:
There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile. He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile. He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse, And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
However, in the version in The Conjuring 2, it adopted a more macabre touch:
The crooked man stepped forth and rang the crooked bell and thus his crooked soul spiralled into a crooked Hell, murdered his crooked family and laughed a crooked laugh.
Nothing much else is known about the movie. So we can only wait for now.
Conjuring Spin-off: The Nurse
The Nurse is a winning entry for a competition held in conjunction with the release of Annabelle: Creation. Wan called for a competition for a short film which would feel like it could fit into The Conjuring Universe. The winning film is called The Nurse, which features a bandaged and temporarily blind girl named Emily who attempts to escape the Demon Nurse. There are no plans to develop this into a full-length feature film but who knows, it might happen soon as The Conjuring universe expands.
Conjuring 3
There’s no official word that there is a second Conjuring sequel but it’s natural to assume it will happen, considering the huge success of the first two movies. Farmiga teases that it’s in the works, “Patrick (Wilson) and I certainly love working together and we love these characters that we have created. We are hoping that in the next year or two that there is number 3. I know the script has been worked on.”
She also shared that there are endless materials which can form the basis of the third movie since the Warrens worked on so many cases. Farmiga added, “I could be wrong. They could be scrapping it. But the last I heard it has something to do with some werewolf case.”
Whatever the subject is for Conjuring 3, as long as James Wan is involved, we know it’ll scare the heck out of us, and we can’t wait.
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