The Big Picture

The Conjuring franchise’s use of the demon Valak in spinoff films has made the character less scary by revealing too much of its backstory. The overuse of Valak in films like The Nun and the Annabelle series has trivialized the character and made subsequent appearances less impactful. The Annabelle doll, once a mysterious and intriguing object in the Conjuring universe, was explained in a way that stripped it of its significance, leaving the Warrens’ collection of artifacts in question.

The last few years have been remarkably fruitful for the development of new franchises within the horror genre. While it’s fun to see storied series like Halloween and Paranormal Activity return for new installments, new additions like Happy Death Day, A Quiet Place, Sinister, and Ouija have proven to be equally popular with horror fans as some of the classics. However, one of the new horror sagas created in recent years has been more successful than any other, The Conjuring. James Wan’s terrifying 2013 film inspired two sequels (with a third on the way), and the spin-off Annabelle and The Nun franchises. While it’s fun to see other horror filmmakers flex their chops within the Conjuring universe, the continued use of Valak within the spin-offs has made the demon less scary. It’s interesting to see the backstory of such a memorable antagonist, but the Conjuring universe risks going down the same route as the Marvel Cinematic Universe in getting lost within its own mythology.

The Conjuring Doesn’t Need Prequels — It Has History
Image Via Warner Bros.

It is mentioned within the opening titles of the original Conjuring film that the events that follow are at least somewhat based on the real case that the paranormal investigators Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) followed in 1968 to investigate the enigmatic Annabelle doll. Hollywood routinely trots out the phrase “based on a true story” and it’s usually an exaggeration, but the semblance of reality made the first film more terrifying as a result. As much as the film’s scariness can be attributed to Wan’s precise direction, the idea that these cases were at least somewhat backed up by fact was enough to keep horror fans up at night. It wasn’t until the second installment in the series that the Warrens actually faced off against the enigmatic demon; The Conjuring 2 saw the Warrens heading to London to help the Hodgson family deal with a series of strange occurrences in their family home.

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Any notion of believability that Valak’s appearance had in The Conjuring 2 had completely evaporated upon the release of 2018’s The Nun. It was evident that Valak had been trivialized, as it somehow had the capability of appearing within whatever historical period the writers behind the Conjuring universe needed it to be. One of the reasons that Wan’s version of Valak was so terrifying was the aura of mystery behind it; what is this esoteric demonic presence, and why has it chosen to haunt this specific family and latch on to their trauma? As it turns out, learning that Valak had been involved with a century-spanning effort by novitiate nuns to suppress a demonic spirit didn’t make the character any scarier in The Nun. Explaining the mystery only trivialized something that was best left ambiguous in the Conjuring films.

The Conjuring Spinoffs Trivialized Valak
Image Via Warner Bros.

The stark contrast in Valak’s depiction in The Nun versus the Conjuring films unfortunately only trivialized the character even further. It didn’t help that Valak also appeared in 2016’s Annabelle: Creation and 2019’s Annabelle Comes Home. While in The Conjuring 2, Valak only appeared in the shadows as a ghostly presence that would occasionally move an object or affect a character’s behavior, The Nun depicted the demon as a typical slasher villain. Simply seeing Valak out in the open made it feel like just another jump-scare initiator. The lack of creativity in the creature’s depiction made its subsequent appearances less impactful; in fact, the Warrens’ most recent adventure in 2021’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It felt like a breath of fresh air considering that it was focused on a case of witchcraft that wasn’t directly related to Valak.

The Conjuring series showed that it was able to move on from Valak and incorporate different villains, but the Nun series continued trying to connect back to the original threat. It made sense that The Devil Made Me Do It chose to abandon Valak; there was no new secret for the Warrens to discover about the demon, as it no longer would feel like a credible threat. If characters from multiple franchises had already survived an encounter with Valak, why should viewers believe that this one would be any different?

Annabelle Was Scary Until She Was Explained

Unfortunately, the issues with The Nun and its overexploitation of a demonic creature is something that the Conjuring franchise had already encountered. In the wake of the first film’s success, the 2014 prequel Annabelle latched onto the possessed doll that had been briefly mentioned in the original film. In what now seems like a distant memory, the “Annabelle case” is referenced as a previous adventure in the Warrens’ past; it lent credibility to their research and suggested something interesting about their history to the audience. What was this mysterious object, and what otherworldly evil had the Warrens suppressed that earned them the reputation of being legitimate paranormal researchers?

Unfortunately, it appeared after the first Annabelle that the Annabelle doll itself is nothing more than a simple object that a demonic spirit happened to inhabit. The issue with the original Annabelle was that the horror itself isn’t tied to the Annabelle doll specifically, as the film revolves around a cult massacre that inspires a demonic presence to take the form of a child’s doll. There is nothing special about the doll itself; the Warrens could have just as easily combated any other household item that a vengeful spirit chose to use. This put all of the items in their collection of mysterious artifacts in question; were these simply a collection of trophies that the Warrens had stored? The notion that they were stashing sacred artifacts to protect others from a potential threat completely disappeared.

The overuse of creatures like Annabelle and Valak can detract from films that would have been successful otherwise. If viewed as a standalone horror film about the nature of grief and the alluring threat of recreating the past, David F. Sandberg’s work on Annabelle: Creation is astounding; it’s less successful as the origin story of a villain that had already appeared in a few other films. Similarly, The Nun II is at its best when it’s focusing on the new elements within the series, and not trying to tie its story into a larger universe that now feels overexerted. The Conjuring franchise has the potential to inspire true creativity from emerging horror auteurs who can relate their craziest ideas back to the Warrens’ collection. It doesn’t need those artists to take it upon themselves to explain each others’ stories.