What To Know Before The Conjuring: Last Rites
A breakdown of The Conjuring Universe
The Conjuring: Last Rites is the 4th Conjuring Movie, but technically the 9th movie in the larger Conjuring cinematic universe… the Conjuverse if you will. That’s right, in case you didn’t know, there’s been a horror version of the MCU going for over 10 years now. And this new movie is like their version of Endgame, with a send off for some of the major characters.
The Conjuverse is inspired by real life paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, who have claimed to investigate over 10,000 cases, some of which are pretty famous, such as the Amityville and Enfield hauntings. As a result of their investigations, the Warrens owned a massive collection of supposedly haunted objects, which they used to showcase as an Occult Museum.
This room of haunted objects is like The Conjuverse’s Infinity Stones. Any one of these things has the potential to show up in one of the Conjuring movies and cause some spooky chaos.
THE CONJURING (2013)
This movie focuses on the 1971 haunting of the Perron family. But before we even get to that, the very first scene introduces us to a character that isn’t really important to this movie, but would go on to be one of the biggest villains of the Conjuverse… a doll known as Annabelle.
A couple of roommates find that their apartment gets much creepier when one of them is given this doll as a gift. When it trashes their apartment, they try to throw it away only for it to mysteriously find its way back. The roommates now fear the doll is possessed.
But thank heavens, The Warrens are on the case. They explain that the doll isn’t actually possessed because inhuman spirits - aka demons - don’t possess objects, they possess people. This demon used the doll as a conduit so that it could try to get one of the roommates. The Warrens then take the Annabelle doll for safekeeping, so it ends up in that creepy collection of theirs.
But back to the main case – the Perron family move into a new farmhouse and scary things start happening. The mom, Carolyn, wakes up with bruises, the clocks all stop at exactly 3:07am, etc.
Now, all of the Conjuverse movies have a similar tone and style. There’s a format to the scares and it was all established here in the first movie. Movies like this sometimes fall into the trap of being a series of jump scares. The problem with this is that they can feel cheap or predictable.
But when James Wan directed The Conjuring, he wasn’t afraid to let the tension build. It seems obvious now, but at the time, the style of these kinds of movies was much quicker, to try and keep the audience’s attention. This movie lets certain moments drag out for an excruciatingly long time. But if you’re going to give all that build up to a jump scare, it better be a good one. And The Conjuring definitely had some clever moments.
The Perron family calls the Warrens for help. They bring in a team of paranormal investigators and eventually determine that a witch used to own the house. When she died she cursed anybody that would try and take her land. The witch’s spirit manages to possess Carolyn, and plans to sacrifice the children. But Ed and Lorraine work together to perform an exorcism and save the Perron family.
Regardless of what you think of the real life Warrens, within the Conjuverse Ed and Lorraine are basically our superheroes. Lorraine has clairvoyant powers that give her visions and a sixth sense when it comes to paranormal entities. Ed functions like a priest even though he is in fact, not a priest. He often ends up holding a cross and shouting prayers at evil spirits.
Ed and Lorraine are the beating heart of the Conjuring franchise. They don’t appear in all of the spin offs, but it all ties back to them. They clearly love each other, and truly want to help the people they meet. I think this is the sleight of hand trick that The Conjuring movies pull – they bring people in because of the scares, but they make a genuine effort in giving you someone to cheer for, so you actually care whether the demons win or not.
The Conjuring earned $320 million against a budget of $20 million, becoming one of the most profitable horror movies of all time. So what does a studio do with all that money? Spin-offs people, spin-offs. Set just a year before The Conjuring our next movie follows John and Mia, a young couple about to have their first child.
Mia already has a porcelain doll collection, and I bet you’ll never guess who shows up…
ANNABELLE (2014)
Annabelle, you little rascal! Except the doll isn’t known as Annabelle… yet. See, John and Mia live next door to the Higgins, who are sad because their teenage daughter, ANNABELLE, ran off to join a “hippie cult.” Only problem was the cult was more interested in evil than it was in peace and love because Annabelle returns to attack her parents. Annabelle ends up in John and Mia’s home where she is killed by the police, while holding Mia’s new doll.
John and Mia eventually learn that the cult Annabelle was a part of were trying to summon a demon. Mia believes that demon is now trying to get the soul of her child. She attempts to sacrifice her own soul to save her child, but at the last moment John and Mia’s friend, Evelyn, sacrifices her soul so that Mia can stay with her daughter.
But by the end, the doll mysteriously ends up in a pawn shop where it’s purchased by a mother, for her daughter, which directly leads us to where it is at the beginning of the Conjuring. And this doll in the background, is an easter egg for the real life Annabelle doll, which was a Raggedy Ann.
THE CONJURING 2
Ed and Lorraine’s next case came in The Conjuring 2. Peggy Hodgson is a single mother living with her four children. As if that wasn’t hard enough, Janet becomes possessed by the spirit of an elderly man who previously lived and died in the house.
Ed and Lorraine are called to investigate. While they’re trying to figure out how to get Bill’s spirit to move on, Lorraine is actually being haunted by her own demon. It typically comes in the form of a freaky looking Nun. At one point she has a vision where she asks what the Nun wants and it shows her a prediction of Ed’s death. The vision is so intense, Lorraine even tears up her bible.
The Warrens begin to realize that Bill, as crotchety of an old man as he is, has no real reason to keep haunting the Hodgson family. And that’s when Ed realizes that some of the things Bill has said through Janet, haven’t made sense until he puts it all together…
It’s then that Ed and Lorraine realize the true villain isn’t Bill, but the demon that’s been haunting Lorraine, the Nun. Even “The Crooked Man” - a twisted version of a toy the kids have - was just a manifestation of this demon. So Ed and Lorraine return to the house to try and cast the demon out.
Now here’s the thing about demons - if you know their name you have control over them. So how do the Warrens figure out the name in time to rescue Janet?? Turns out… they already know it! When Lorraine had that vision of the demon and she carved up the bible - she actually carved the name into the bible… Valak!
So, right as Ed and Janet are about to meet their end, Lorraine rushes in and stops Valak by speaking its name and condemning it to hell. The next Conjuverse movie would go back in time to show how a certain doll was actually created. That’s right, it’s…
ANNABELLE CREATION (2017)
Annabelle, you little scamp! So just to be clear, this movie occurs before the first Annabelle movie.
Sam Mullins is a dollmaker. He and his wife Esther, lose their daughter in a tragic accident. Guess what her name is? Brittany. Just kidding, it’s Annabelle.
Years later a bunch of orphans come to live with the Mullins. The orphan girls are explicitly told not to go into Annabelle’s old room but Janice does it anyway, because the movie needs to happen. She opens a closet lined with pages from the Bible, and discovers a doll. This of course causes a whole bunch of scary things to happen in the house.
We eventually find out that years ago, the Mullins were tricked. They believed that they were receiving visits from their daughter’s spirit, so they gave it permission to live inside the doll, but it was actually a demon preying on their grief. The demon then attacked Mrs. Mullins so they locked it away in the closet.
Now that it’s been released, it possesses poor Janice. But on the bright side she’s cured of her polio. Under the demon’s control, Janice attacks all the other orphans and their guardian, Sister Charlotte. They manage to lock Janice and the doll back in the closet but… Janice escapes.
The police take the doll as evidence, but nobody knows where Janice went. Until we see her in an orphanage going by the name Annabelle. The movie ends just as the Higgins from the first Annabelle movie show up to adopt her.
The Higgins raise Janice – who just to recap, is still possessed by a demon – as their own and she is now the same Annabelle that returns years later and attacks Mia. WOAH!
THE NUN (2018)
We now get our earliest movie in the Conjuverse… meant to show the origin of Valak from The Conjuring 2.
Set in 1952, the story follows Sister Irene. And yes, she looks a lot like Lorraine because the actresses are sisters in real life. A lot of fans hypothesized they were actually the same person within the story, but they’re not. So DROP IT.
Sister Irene is called to investigate a dark presence at a monastery in Romania. The history of this particular demon goes all the way back to the Dark Ages. An ancient rift to hell exists beneath the monastery which had been sealed by some Knights. But the rift was reopened during World War 2, allowing Valak to enter the monastery.
With the help of Father Burke and a handyman named Maurice, Irene manages to seal the rift, but Valak secretly possesses Maurice.
20 years later, Carolyn Perron from the first Conjuring movie watches the Warrens give a presentation about how they tried to help with an exorcism of a man named Maurice. During that exorcism, Maurice grabs Lorraine, showing how she first came into contact with Valak.
The next Conjuverse movie brings things back to the Warren’s creepy collection and guess who is at the center of the chaos?
ANNABELLE COMES HOME (2019)
Oh Annabelle, you little scallywag! This one takes place between The Conjuring 1 and 2, but after the other Annabelle movies.
Ed and Lorraine go away to work on a case, leaving their daughter Judy in the care of babysitter Mary Ellen, who is just an absolute gem. Her friend, Daniela however… is just the worst.
Daniela is obsessed with the Warrens reputation and finds a way to sneak into their room of evil objects, despite multiple warnings not to. We’ll cut her a little slack because she’s really just trying to communicate with her dad that recently passed away. She messes with a whole BUNCH of stuff in the room, but the worst is of course, the Annabelle doll, which is so powerful it acts as a beacon for other spirits. So once she lets it out, it activates many of the other cursed objects.
This results in them having to fend off an angry bride, a guy with a coin collection, a werewolf, even a haunted board game.
They are eventually able to lock Annabelle back in her case, all before Ed and Lorraine return home. Lorraine lets Daniela know that her dad is okay and loves her. Aw, thanks Lorraine.
THE CURSE OF LA LLORONA (2019)
Now this is technically where The Curse of La Llorona, would be, but according to the studio, this is not an official Conjuring movie. Hey, I don’t make the rules, sorry, we’re not talking about it.
THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT (2021)
Ed and Lorraine’s next case, starts with them trying to help with the exorcism of a young boy named David. Just before Ed suffers a heart attack, he sees the demon leave David and possess Arne.
Ed wakes up a month later in the hospital, but Arne, still possessed by the demon, has already committed a horrible act. He becomes the subject of the first ever murder trial where possession is used as a defense.
The Warrens learn from a former priest studying the case that a witch’s totem had been in David’s house, one that’s associated with a specific cult – the same one that Annabelle joined back in the first Annabelle movie. Ed and Lorraine learn that they need to destroy the witch’s altar to stop the curse from being passed on.
Once they find it, it’s revealed that the witch is actually the daughter of the priest. She uses her powers to try and force Ed to attack Lorraine, but Lorraine is able to stop it with the power of love!
They destroy the altar and save the day. Arne’s sentence is reduced to 5 years for manslaughter.
THE NUN 2 (2023)
And finally, we catch up with Valak, Irene and Maurice. As a reminder this is our full timeline now.
As we know, Valak has managed to carry on through Maurice, who is working at a school in France. Valak is as evil as ever, and is continuing to cause death and chaos, so Irene is sent to investigate since she’s had experience with this demon before. This eventually leads her to the school, where she reunites with Maurice only to realize he has been the vessel for Valak.
Irene also learns that Valak is trying to exterminate the bloodline of St. Lucy, which is revealed to include both Irene and Lorraine Warren. This is intended to explain where Irene, Lorraine, and Judy Warren get their clairvoyant powers - as descendants of St. Lucy.
Irene is seemingly able to banish Valak once more, but as we already know, it actually still resides within Maurice. A final scene shows the Warrens receiving a call to go and help with his exorcism.
CONCLUSION
SO. The Conjuverse is defined first and foremost by moments of long tension followed by inventive jumpscares.
But as it developed, we began to see a series of interconnected plots which have both overarching villains…
…and overarching heroes.
Last Rites is supposed to show the Warrens taking on their final case. Will we see the return of Valak? Or Annabelle? Or maybe one of our heroes like Irene? Let me know what you think!
If only people explained Marvel by relating it to the Conjurverse, it would all make a lot more sense to me 🥲