At some point during my early teen years, I watched The Conjuring. I don’t remember how old I was, but I remember really liking the movie and finding it actually a little scary (keep in mind, I was watching Saw at age 11).

From then, my attention moved to other things: Sinister, Insidious, Paranormal Activities 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 billion. I didn’t stay plugged into the franchise in any intentional way.

Cut to a few years ago. I was rewatching some horror movies I remembered liking back then, and I gave The Conjuring another pass.

And it held up!

I still thought it was solidly scary and an enjoyable story. A Wikipedia dive led me to the story of the Warrens, of course, and while it’s generally known now that they were pretty definitively frauds (and I’ve heard that Ed was not as great a guy as Patrick Wilson portrays him as), I was still interested in this massive Hollywood IP and what they’d do with it.

I’m not going to get into their whole story, because this post is about the movies, not their lives. But check out their Wikipedia page if you want to learn more about the real-life inspiration for this franchise.

Anyway, that rabbit hole led me to watch Annabelle, as I’d seen images of the doll at some point before. I was a bit hesitant going into that one, as I’m generally not a fan of the “cursed doll” trope (namely Chucky). They tend to fall into the patterns of slashers, of which I’m not a fan.

But I was very, very pleasantly surprised!

I’ll get into the specifics in a moment, but having such a good time with Annabelle really made me want to check out more of the franchise.

…And years went by.

You may remember my review of The Conjuring 2 for 2025’s Horror Month (check out that post, it’s a good one). That was the start of my continuation of these movies. And I know it was a while ago, but it’s still fresh in my mind.

Randomly, one weekend in early May, I found myself really wanting to watch a good, classic, jump scare-filled horror movie. I remembered that I wanted to get further in The Conjuring universe, so I looked up which one was up next (I prefer to go in release order for things rather than chronological), and I settled in to watch Annabelle: Creation.

I subsequently watched The Nun directly after, then Annabelle Comes Home the next day.

It just kind of happened, guys. I don’t know.

Eventually I made my way all the way to the latest installment, The Conjuring: Last Rites. And I took notes during all the movies! I also gave The Conjuring and Annabelle one extra watch so that I could take some notes on those, too, since I hadn’t watched them as recently.

Who’s ready for some reviews???

Here we go (in release order)! I won’t be including any outright story spoilers, though I will allude to the films’ connections.

Important Note: I didn’t realize I’d have so much to say about all of these movies, so this will be spread out over two posts.

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The Conjuring (2013)

Rating: 10 / 10

Demonlogists Ed & Lorraine Warren lend their aid to the Perron family, who have been experiencing frightening events in their new home.

Wow. Somehow this movie was even better on the 3rd (4th?) watch.

There are so many things that I noted here that were genius. Right from the start, I love how we see the Perron family arrive at their “new” house from inside of it, like we’re one of the entities inside. I’m also an absolute sucker for silence in horror- see my many praises for Mike Flanagan- so I really liked how little score there was during a lot of scenes, both tense and not.

One thing I’ve isolated from this rewatch is that the later Conjuring movies really lose these well-timed jump scares (yes, I watched the whole franchise before coming back to the start here). A great example of this is the scene in the girls’ bedroom where they see the entity behind the door. We start watching Joey King get creeped out by the thing pulling her feet, then she leans over the end of her bed to look and of course we’re expecting something to jump out and nothing does, so we breathe out for a second, then she does something worse and checks under the bed, and we linger on that shot for a really long time. Then we’re granted one more breather as Nancy wakes up and asks what’s scaring Joey King, and finally we culminate in the thing “standing right behind” Nancy in utter blackness before the jump scare finally comes. I still, after so many watches, can’t see the thing standing behind Nancy in that darkness. I don’t think we’re supposed to.

That’s another thing this movie does way better than its sequels: we don’t abuse “seeing the monster” in this installment. It’s pretty well agreed-upon that in a horror movie, you really don’t want the audience to see the monster very much until at least the very end, if ever. It takes away that fear of the unknown if we know the demon is just a grey humanoid with black eyes. Ya know? And this seems to be the only Conjuring movie that respects that conceit. Really, the only shots we get of entities in full-lighting are crafted so well that it doesn’t take away from our imagination at all. Most famously, that shot of the witch crouched on top of the wardrobe. *shivers*

Even when Lorraine sees the ghost of the mother in the basement, it’s done so creepily (it’s a word!) that I had to look away. If there’s anything the rest of the Universe lacks, it’s this tasteful, restrained use of putting the monster in full view.

Another standout scene for me was Ed and Lorraine during their first walk through the basement with the parabolic microphone. That’s filmmaking genius right there: the only audio we can hear is what that mic is picking up. When Ed holds it away from himself, we lose his voice. We don’t hear Lorraine when she’s not near Ed, and it creates a great creepy moment when we pan over and see her bent over in one of her trances.

It’s these little, artful things that make this movie a 10/10 for me. As someone who’s quite jaded by the horror films of my childhood (2000’s-2010’s), I am always appreciative of someone who does things just a little differently (insert more Mike Flanagan praise here).

If you’re still reading at this point and haven’t managed to ever see this movie, you really should. Even if you’re not a horror movie fan, I would go so far as to claim The Conjuring is one of, if not the, defining movie of the paranormal horror genre.

Annabelle (2014)

Rating: 8/10

A young couple is terrorized by an evil presence after someone dies in their home clutching a doll.

You know, this was my third time watching this movie and it’s good every time. Also, I noticed this time around that it’s actually in spirit with Rosemary’s Baby, a trait I hadn’t noticed until I read the book. Young woman newly a mother thinks she’s being hunted by a demon? There we go.

This movie is a rocking good time from start to finish. The inciting sequence with the home invasion is so intelligently shot. The sparse sound, the way we don’t see what happened from inside but rather from next door, the building of tension as we sit on particular shots for some time without release. The way we hear Mia speaking with a woman but all we see is the man creeping up behind her. It’s all so good. That sequence is, in my uneducated opinion, just a masterful piece of cinema.

I also noted how much I liked the house fire sequence. It builds very well and the imagery of Mia crawling through the flames really sent home the whole “devil” theme of it all.

One thing that’s really fun here that I didn’t notice until the third watch was the crooked shots. There are multiple instances (it might actually be every instance) where there’s something geometrical and grounded in the shot–an elevator, lots of doors, etc–and that shot is purposefully crooked, tilted so that we can’t be grounded by the comfort of geometry as we expect it.

Whoa, I sounded kind of smart for a second there.

This rewatch also really struck me with how lovely and adorable the relationship is between Mia and Evelyn. Evelyn lost her daughter and, in turn, seems to see Mia as a daughter figure, like a second chance. They have really cute banter (specifically thinking of when Evelyn bought Leah all those clothes) and I really believe the relationship. When we reach the climax and a terrible decision is made, it just makes us feel it even more after all that.

Now, as you’ll see below (obviously I’ve been writing this post out of order), the rest of the Annabelle movies don’t come anywhere near this one in terms of quality (in my opinion, of course), and you really don’t need to watch them to get a full story. This movie is more than perfectly good as a standalone story. Besides, if you do want more Annabelle, she does show up in mainline Conjuring movies later.

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Rating: 6/10

Ed and Lorraine travel to England to assist with a disturbing case involving a young girl and her family.

So, here’s the thing. At this point I’ve been working on this stupid article for four months. My brain is aching with Conjuring movies and their relations. And the thing about this movie is that I watched it somewhat recently (October) and I also just literally ran out of time to rewatch it for this. So, I’m going to be a little bit (a lot) lazy and carry over my review of this movie from last year’s Horror Month roundup post. Sorry. I’m just so fried at this point. Take it away, 2025 Ava.

There were things I loved about this movie and things that made me go “Oh. Oh dear,” cringing. I’ll start with the bad so we can end positively.

The creature scares were kind of not there for me. The Crooked Man was a creepy idea, and that spinning toy was a really unnerving prop. But the way it’s executed as the physical scare just made me chuckle. I think the problem was 1. They put him in too much light, so he lost that ‘scary unknown’ factor. 2. He didn’t look enough like the art on the toy for you to immediately say “Oh, it’s the Crooked Man!” For a good ten seconds you’re just like, okay, what is this supposed to be and why is it goofy as hell. I also think we saw The Nun maybe one too many times, and she lost her scariness after that for me.

I do really like how the first two movies have a running idea- a family is being targeted and need the Warrens’ help, who are kind of dealing with a little side thing at the same time, and that thing ends up the focus of its own movie.

Something this movie really did well was the relationship between Ed and Lorraine. I loved the scenes of them being there for each other amid the criticism from skeptics, the communication and respect for each other they have (where Lorraine says she doesn’t want to take on new cases and Ed is immediately understanding). Lorraine’s concern for Ed and intense fear of losing him are really hard-hitting. The Elvis song and that little moment they have at the end was just too sweet and actually made me tear up.

Check it out if you’re doing a chronological Conjuring universe watch, but not if you’re just looking to jump in somewhere and get a good scare.

Annabelle: Creation (2017)

Rating: 6.5 / 10

Years after losing their young daughter tragically, a couple opens their sprawling ranch house to a group of foster girls, but an entity residing in one of their daughter’s old dolls doesn’t want to share the attention.

I know a 6.5 is a little low for my usual ratings, but I did have fun with this movie. The child actors all did a pretty impressive job, and there was detectable atmosphere throughout. The setting of the old and too-empty farm house set literally in the middle of nowhere was very eerie and isolating.

I could predict a lot of the story beats, however, and there were a lot of moments where I really didn’t believe any of the girls would act the way they did- going in rooms whose doors cracked open on their own (SEVERAL times), etc. The first time we see the demon, and it screams “I want your soul!” was just goofy and made me laugh, so that took me out of it.

There will still many moments that made me want to look away: most of the scenes in the daughter’s bedroom, the bunk bed scare, the thing with the chair lift. Really this movie’s biggest problem was that we saw the demon a little too much, and it was mostly funny rather than scary.

Also, if you knew there was a demonic presence trapped in a doll in your house, why would you bring a bunch of children into your home and make the only obstacle to finding it be a locked door? Do they not know that kids will find ways to get into anything they want to? For how dangerous they understood Annabelle to be, they really could’ve at least padlocked the door and worn the key around their necks. Come on.

Negativity aside, I really did have fun watching this and found myself to be pretty tense through most of the film. We all know that paranormal horror can be quite predictable with its plot and jump scares, but that’s also why we love it. It’s a comfortable rhythm that can contain some truly disturbing events and imagery.

I also really got excited when the end of this movie showed us the direct series of events that led to the iconic opening scene of Annabelle, which was very exciting as a big fan of the original. So it got some bonus points for that great bit of fan service.

The Nun (2018)

Rating: 9 / 10

A young nun and a priest are sent to investigate strange happenings at an abbey in Romania.

I like to go into things blind (I know I’ve mentioned this before), so when this baby started rolling and I saw Taissa Farmiga on the screen, I jumped in my seat with excitement. I’ve been a huge fan of hers ever since the very first season of American Horror Story, and one of my favorite TV characters of all time is Zoey from AHS: Coven.

And BOY, does she absolutely deliver this role.

Fresh off reading Viggy Parr Hampton’s The Rotting Room (I reviewed it in this article), I was ready to devour some more religious horror. I loved the intro sequence- it got my heart pounding right away and raised a ton of questions.

I loved Frenchie, and I think he actually had fantastic chemistry with Irene. I found myself rooting for them to get together, they were just that cute. Frenchie was also a very fun character and a bit of a risk for this franchise- at this point, it’s not too common to get a full comic relief character, and this one was used perfectly: not too goofy, used the right amount, ultimately helpful and a good addition to the team.

The entire scene toward the beginning where Frenchie shows Irene & Father Burke how he put the body in the ice room was (heh) chilling.

But really, that shot of the nun’s body sitting upright and frozen? Terrifying. And I literally shivered when Frenchie said matter-of-factly, “That’s not how I left her”.

I do think they moved on a little too fast when Father Burke was literally buried alive. Like, why would you still stay at the abbey after that? Why didn’t you at least ask the abbess what the hell that was all about or who did it? I would be indignant.

All the scenes with the boy Daniel were very well done and creeped me out really good. I loved how he had a really specific way that he moved through the environment. While his story may have been superfluous to the overall plot, I think we are used to little mini-stories being put in these movies at this point. I think it just adds an extra dimension of creepy.

I think this was definitely one of the best installments. It also ended with a really fun and cool connection to the original movie, which was very exciting: a character from this story was actually mentioned way back then. This was true of Annabelle: Creation as well. I am a big fan of how they’re threading this timeline together.

Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

Rating: 5.5 / 10

A curious teenager lets Annabelle loose in the Warrens’ home while they’re out of town, and their daughter, Judy, is put in danger.

It was a little hard to write an actual summary, and not just “Some rude ass bitch ignores multiple clear signs and lets a demon loose in SOMEONE ELSE’S HOUSE with a little girl inside.”

I mean, this was not the worst movie ever, but the premise really got me heated. Not that I don’t believe this would happen, teenagers can be total shits, but I found it irritating that I was supposed to sympathize with this chick after doing something that fucking dumb.

Sorry. It just gets me heated.

First off, I did find it a little goofy that Ed & Lorraine thought it would be fine to just… drive home with Annabelle loose in their car? Knowing how dangerous she was? I mean, they didn’t even put her in a cardboard box. Just propped her up in the backseat. I wouldn’t be surprised if they buckled her in.

Also, when will people learn to stop putting Annabelle in rocking chairs?? FFS.

I mentioned above how cursed doll movies often emulate the structure of slashers, and while the first two Annabelle-centered movies do a good job of being their own thing, this one did pretty much immediately fall into the slasher formula. I mean, there’s even a babysitter and a boyfriend who shouldn’t be there. Again, slashers just aren’t my thing. No offense to those who love them.

Also, I got really tired really quickly of all the cursed objects in the Cursed Objects room going off and flying around and I really just don’t buy that these girls would continually fall for the lure and go toward the object to investigate. Like, really. It was like how in Skyrim you can shoot an arrow at the wall to get enemies to investigate over there while you sneak up behind them. It made the characters feel stupid (or stupider, if we’re talking about the girl who let Annabelle loose). It became too predictable of a scare to be fun. I started to roll my eyes pretty quickly.

Also, I really should’ve taken a shot every time a flashlight / lantern flickered out for no reason other than “spooky thing happening soon!”

So, basically, all that happens in this movie is creepy cursed trinkets move something or move around, one of the girls walks slowly towards it while acting scared, right when they go to touch it a jump scare happens and then we repeat with a different girl. There are three girls, by the way. And they all do this at least twice.

Also, I mentioned above that Frenchie in The Nun was a great example of using a comic relief in horror. In this one, we have Bob.

Bob is a great example of a bad use of comic relief in horror.

In fact, he’s what gives this movie the strongest argument to be classified as a slasher. He’s lame but not charming, and every moment he’s on screen is the movie trying to get us to find him quirky and goofy. It got tiring, especially since he was not endearing at all in the way Frenchie was. I wish he’d been entirely removed from the movie, to be honest.

This ending wasn’t as strong for me. I did enjoy that callback to Ed playing the guitar, which I think is just a really sweet trait that fleshes him out as a great guy, but I think the ending was a little too cute/wrapped everything up too neatly. And we didn’t really get an exciting ending that tied into another work. That’s okay, I think we’re in present time of the timeline, but still. I was enjoying that.

This was my least favorite so far, and I think that’s pretty clear, since I really didn’t have anything nice to say about it. Honestly, the only good part of this movie was Judy. Mckenna Grace is a fantastic actress and she really leaned into this character here. What’s sad is that Judy was the literal child being babysat, but basically the only one of them with any sort of intelligence or critical thinking.

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My reviews of The Conjuring Cinematic Universe will continue in next week’s post! If you aren’t caught up on all the movies and want to follow along with me, now’s a great time. Next week’s post will pick apart The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, The Nun II, The Conjuring: Last Rites, Wolves at the Door, and The Curse of La Llorona. Stay tuned!

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Monthly Writing Goals Update

4,234 / 20,000 words

We’re off to a good start for July!

This week I wrote a short story answering a prompt call from a magazine, but I finished it, like, literally right after they closed subs early, so now I just have that. I submitted it to a few places, since I actually really like it, but we’ll see.

I also (surprise surprise) started a new project. I know, I know. But this one’s gonna be great, I promise! I was reading Olivie Blake’s Januaries while trying to ignore the ruckus of my neighbor’s fireworks and came across the story Sucker For Pain, which made something fall into place in my head. It gave me a way to tie together some concepts I really liked and wanted to try playing with myself, inspired by Hazelthorn and The Binding. Yes, it’s another queer story. No, I don’t know why that’s the only thing I seem to be able to write.

But at least I’m writing.

What’s wild about that project is I had the entire, literally entire, plot come to me at once. Like, detailed. That’s never happened to me before. And I spent all day Monday crafting the characters and fleshing out the plot even more, so at this point, literally all I have to do is just write the words. The whole thing is just there. Waiting.

Why does that feel like cheating? (asks the habitual pantser who’s still amazed by the power of an outline).

Wish me luck!

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