Since 2013, millions of people across the world have found themselves sleeping with the lights on after being introduced to The Conjuring and the numerous films and demons that inhabit the film universe. Although most of the films are based on real events, everything is exaggerated, of course, as the true stories were not quite so eventful. Beginning with The Conjuring in 2013, we are introduced to married paranormal investigators Ed (played by Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (played by Vera Farmiga) Warren, who were indeed real people who did investigate all manner of supernatural events. With Lorraine’s clairvoyant abilities and Ed’s background in demonology, they were routinely sent by the Catholic church to investigate and report back, particularly when it came to potential hoaxes. Lorraine Warren was a head consultant on the films until her death in 2019, and adding that kind of “realism” certainly made the films a tad more frightening. As the next (and perhaps final) instalment of this franchise, The Conjuring: Last Rites is soon to hit cinemas, let’s take a look through the universe, including its spin-off characters, The Nun and Annabelle.

The Conjuring (2013)
Director: James Wan
3/5

In this first instalment, Ed (Wilson) and Lorraine (Farmiga) Warren take on a case of a family being haunted in their new house, with a dark entity becoming ever more violent as it looks to take as many lives as it can. It’s a decent introduction to the universe, and Ed and Lorraine come across as a genuine, caring couple that fully believe in their cause. The frights and jump scares are mostly predictable, with a handful that work well, and could have been stronger overall, but the addition of ‘based on a true story’ with the title card gives it a little more heft in its horror throughline. The performances, particularly from Lily Taylor as the family’s matriarch, are relatively strong on the whole, and the chemistry between Wilson and Farmiga gives the film more credibility.

Annabelle (2014)
Director: John R. Leonetti
2.5/5

The franchise has barely started and it already has its first spin-off. In Annabelle, we find out how this creepy doll came to be possessed, as a husband and his pregnant wife are attacked by cultists and subsequently find themselves haunted by a malevolent force. It feels loosely connected to the main universe through Annabelle the doll and could easily have been its own standalone film without her presence. The ‘satanic panic’ that began in the 60s was a good idea for a setting, though it perhaps wasn’t used to its full potential. Annabelle Wallis leads the film as pregnant wife/new mother Mia, and she has about the only strong performance of the film. The plot isn’t strong and seems to taper off into something different by the end, and the horror aspect is diluted by a lot of dialogue and exposition surrounding the dark ‘presence’, but clearly it made some kind of an impact to have two further sequels.

The Conjuring 2 (2016)
Director: James Wan
3.5/5

Wan manages to take things up a notch in this sequel. In 1977, Ed (Wilson) and Lorraine (Farmiga) head to London on behalf of the Catholic church to find out if a young girl is really possessed or creating an elaborate hoax. The story feels more solid than in the first film, with the demonic presence having more depth to it and mixing Ed and Lorraine’s personal experiences with their work to create more dimensions to the plot. Some of the performances are mixed (particularly from the British cast), but Wilson and Farmiga continue to be solid leads. There are higher quality frights, a few great shots and angles, and the story builds well to a satisfying conclusion. There’s also something extra terrifying and claustrophobic about a standard English house being the setting of a horror film – quite the opposite of the huge American houses often used in haunting films (much like in the first Conjuring film).

Annabelle: Creation (2017)
Director: David F. Sandberg
2.5/5

In this prequel to Annabelle, we discover how the doll came to be and where the initial spirit of Annabelle, or the demon attached to the name, began its possession. When an orphanage is closed down, the girls and their caretaker, Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) are offered shelter at the home of the Mullins’s, a husband and wife who lost their daughter twelve years prior. During their stay, the orphaned girls come to discover more about the Mullins’s daughter and something else that affects the couple and their house. Much like the first Annabelle film, this one attempts to add depth to the doll’s story but doesn’t provide much in the way of horror entertainment and the backstory, in all honesty, isn’t particularly interesting. It has its mildly scary moments, but they are few and far between. The performances by the young actors are fairly decent for their age, particularly as they probably had little to react to when filming, and the adult actors feel more like they are in supporting roles for the girls, but on the whole the Annabelle branch is proving to be the weaker side of the franchise so far. (Also, was it just an issue with Netflix, or was the sound on this film really poor?)

The Nun (2018)
Director: Corin Hardy
3/5

Now, we take things back to how Valak, the demon haunting everyone so far, has come to be such a blight in their lives. In 1952, Father Burke (Demián Bichir) is sent by the Vatican to Romania to investigate the potential suicide of a nun at a very old abbey. He takes Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga, sister of Vera Farmiga), a young nun working at a school who is yet to take her vows, to go with him. Of course, things don’t go particularly well at the abbey, and as Irene and Father Burke proceed in their investigation, they discover an extremely powerful evil has long made its home there, and it will not go down without a fight. Ultimately, there was no real reason for this movie to exist on a canonical level for The Conjuring universe, however Hardy’s direction and commitment to creating a pure gothic horror is keenly felt throughout, and it is worth seeing for this and the cinematography if not the relatively mild horror. The performances too are worth the watch. The Nun will not go down in the annals of greatest horror movies ever made, however it does have potential for cult status.
Read the full The Nun review.

Annabelle Comes Home (2019)
Director: Gary Dauberman
2/5

Annabelle has been on quite the journey thus far in the franchise, and now it seems like she may finally be putting her feet up. When Ed (Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) head out on a case overnight, their ten-year-old daughter Judy (Mckenna Grace) and her babsitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) have their night severely disrupted when Mary Ellen’s friend Daniela (Katie Sarife) shows up and sneaks into the Warrens’s room of artifacts and opens Annabelle’s case. The Annabelle-based films have not been strong on the whole, and if this is to be the last of that branch, it’ll be a relief. The film is weak in its horror, lacking any actual story and is frankly boring from start to finish (other than a brief scene with Ed and Lorraine bringing Annabelle to their house). Mckenna Grace does well in her performance, which is unsurprising for her, however Judy is not as interesting a character as her parents, at least not thus far in the series. Now Annabelle is home, here’s hoping she stays there.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)
Director: Michael Chaves
3.5/5

Shit starts to get a little more real in this instalment. In 1981, Ed (Wilson) and Lorraine (Farmiga) assist in the exorcism of an 8-year-old boy, but instead of expelling the demon, it enters the body of the boy’s sister’s boyfriend, Arne (Ruairi O’Connor). Arne then proceeds to murder his landlord, and in the court case, his defense pleads innocent on account of Arne being possessed. Ed and Lorraine set out to prove Arne’s innocence and find out who is responsible for the possessions. There is an increase in scope and quality in this film and it features a good story that was once again (loosely) based on real events, but it would have been good to add a little courtroom drama to it too, in a similar vein to The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Farmiga and Wilson lead the film admirably, though O’Connor also puts in a solid performance as Arne, and the plot widens to more than just a demonic antogonist.

The Nun II (2023)
Michael Chaves
2.5/5

Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) returns in this sequel after reports of more strange deaths across Europe causes the church to send her to investigate. She eventually heads to a boarding school in France where her old friend Maurice (Jonas Bloquet) now works, though he has had to live with the demon Valak constantly watching over his shoulder. It’s a slight step down from the previous film, in that the motivation that drives the plot was actually pretty solid, but everything else kind of latched on weakly to that. It has also lost some of that gothic style that made the first film stand out more. The figure of the Nun remains a fearful creature in the darker scenes, and Farmiga puts in a good performance, but overall it probably wasn’t the strongest plot to further the story of Valak or Sister Irene.

The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025)
Michael Chaves
3.5/5

In this supposed final instalment on this branch of the universe, Ed (Wilson) and Lorraine (Farmiga) investigate a haunting at the Smurl house at the insistance of their daughter Judy (Mia Tomlinson), a haunting that turns out to have personal meaning to the Warrens. It’s a fairly satisfying end to the onscreen careers of Ed and Lorraine, giving it a very personal feel for both characters and audiences who have followed their (fictional) careers. It does have rather an abrupt ending, but it gives meaning to the expression ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey’. It clearly exaggerates Judy’s involvement in Ed and Lorraine’s work, but as far as the film is concerned, it gives a lot of heart to the story to make it mostly about Judy.
Read the full The Conjuring: Last Rites review.

Additional viewing:
The Amityville Horror
The Haunting in Connecticut
The Curse of La Llorona

Beyond The Conjuring universe are other films that connect in one way or another that widen the stories involving Ed and Lorraine. The pair investigated the real Amityville house haunting, in which a family was supposedly terrorised by paranormal activity long after Ronald DeFeo Jr. murdered his own family in the house, and there have been numerous films based on this, starting with 1979’s The Amityville Horror. Then there’s 2009’s The Haunting in Connecticut, based on another case involving the Warrens (though without their presence in the film), and finally 2019’s The Curse of La Llorona that does not involve the Warrens but features the appearance of Father Perez from Annabelle, thus making it a part of this universe (it was also the directorial debut of Michael Chaves).

Whether you believe in the the supernatural/demons/life after death, there’s a lot of entertainment to be had from films such as these that base themselves on peoples’ alleged experiences. The Conjuring films are the strongest of the bunch, with The Nun falling in the middle and Annabelle trailing behind. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga never falter in their performances, and so much of their films’ weaker aspects come from the building of the horror around them. The Nun attempts to delve into the background of Valak but doesn’t really provide all that much, and Annabelle feels like an unecessary addition just to cash in on the franchise. Without Ed and Lorraine, the franchise as a whole ought to come to an end, as it’s difficult to see a future that doesn’t have them at its core, so I supposed we’ll wait with bated breath to see what James Wan & co come up with for the next “phase”.