When director James Wan‘s deeply effective The Conjuring released in 2013, little did anyone think a standalone horror film depicting one of Ed and Lorraine Warren’s cases would spawn into a fully-fledged cinematic universe. Despite a handful of misfires, the series has proven mostly solid spinning an entertaining yarn on the paranormal investigators and the rogue’s gallery of supernatural demons and entities they’ve faced.
With The Conjuring: Last Rites now in cinemas, and supposedly the final outing for Ed and Lorraine Warren, here is my ranking of all the films in The Conjuring Universe to date. Note I’m including The Curse of La Llorona, which was considered part of the series when it released but then wasn’t in 2021 when director Michael Chaves said it was only intended as “a wink and a nod” to the franchise.
10) Annabelle
Annabelle is unquestionably the worst of the series and has virtually no redeeming qualities to it. Riding off the success of The Conjuring a year before, John R. Leonetti’s spin-off is a blatantly unoriginal, preposterous cash grab that save for one very well orchestrated scare and beautiful cinematography, is a dud. Annabelle lacks any of the sense of dread The Conjuring has and the jump scares are obvious and uninspiring. The cast are uniformly terrible, in particular Ward Horton and the script is cringeworthy. Its ending is particularly offensive where characters make irrational and stupid decisions and I laughed multiple times. It’s a film that looks like it should have gone straight-to-DVD and represented a complete U-turn in quality for the series.
9) The Nun
The Nun is an absolute trainwreck – the film is edited extremely badly, its overreliance on jump scares mean it isn’t scary and the story is borderline incoherent. However, unlike Annabelle, there are some redeeming qualities to The Nun.
Director Corin Hardy is clearly a horror aficionado which shows in the film’s cineliteracy (there are allusions to some of the Hammer horror films for instance) and the film is quite atmospheric and establishes a chilling setting. For instance, there are some breathtaking shots of the exteriors of the monastery which really portray the grandeur and influence it has on its characters. This is by far, the most frightening aspect of the film and leaves a lot to audience interpretation. It’s strange then that Hardy resorts to jump scares, which are all poor and there is not a single memorable one in the film. It’s also strange that Hardy chooses to punish the characters in the worst possible way towards the beginning of the film. There is an extended sequence where a character is stuck in a grave, which is a horrifying scenario but anything that happens to this character afterwards is never as bad. Surely, this sequence would have worked better towards the end of the film? Despite these fatal mis-steps, all of Hardy’s good work in the film’s atmosphere is undone and squandered by how the film has been edited. Every scene films too brief and this really hinders in creating a creepy atmosphere. Somewhere here is a good enough film, but the way it has been edited completely undermines this and this results in The Nun ultimately being very disappointing.
8) The Nun 2
The Nun 2 represents an improvement over the original with better storytelling and coherent editing but still suffers from its fair share of problems. Director Michael Chaves makes a stronger effort to give the characters an arc, it’s slickly shot and edited and the second half is entertaining in places. However, the jump scares aren’t particularly effective and the first hour is quite tedious, as Sisters Irene and Debra (Taissa Farmiga and Storm Reid) try to catch up with the fact Valak (Bonnie Aaron) has possessed Maurice (Jonas Bloquet) which we learnt at the end of the previous film. The script is quite clunky and there’s some inexcusable exposition, a seemingly all-knowing librarian the nuns meet in their investigation who conveniently happens to know all the particulars of a Macguffin device they need and exactly how to defeat the demon is incredibly lazy. A revelatory line in the film’s climax relating to a mother’s eyes is also unintentionally laughable. It’s also a shame Storm Reid’s character is underdeveloped following a potentially interesting introduction and Anna Popplewell’s unconvincing Irish accent is distracting.
7) The Conjuring: Last Rites
While The Conjuring: Last Rites isn’t a bad film, it’s a disappointing ending to the mainline series. Director Michael Chaves veers between an overly schmaltzy tone in how the relationship between a now grown-up Judy (Mia Tomlinson) and Tony (Ben Hardy) develops, and also the relationship between Ed and Lorraine Warren, with sub-par horror. The decision to revert back to the haunted house formula is a bad one, with Chaves lacking James Wan’s mastery in the scares department. While there’s semblances of tension here and there, he doesn’t create a palpable atmosphere of dread like Wan does. There’s a couple of good scares – one involving pausing a videotape and another in a room of mirrors, but the rest are rather underwhelming. Nothing here is on the scale of the tremendous scene from the first film of two children frozen in fear of something that may or may not be behind a door. Chaves unfortuantely also succumbs to many bouts of fan service and in an age of legacy sequels, he leaves the door open by setting Judy and Tony as successors to their parents – Ben Hardy’s Tony essentially performs the same function as Shia La Boeuf’s Mutt in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. While The Conjuring: Last Rites is supposedly the end for Ed and Lorraine Warren for now, nothing’s really the end but I hope whatever’s next in store for the series has some more thought and care put into it.
6) Annabelle Comes Home
The third film in the Annabelle trilogy isn’t as effective as the second but writer Gary Dauberman’s directorial debut has a lot going for it. Dauberman’s film is the first spin-off to feature the Warren’s and is effectively a horror-spin on Night At The Museum as Judy Warren (Mckenna Grace) and her babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) inadvertently release Annabelle’s spirit in the artifacts room. The storyline is solid, but the film’s not particularly scary and rather empty in feeling.
5) The Curse of La Llorona
Only loosely tied to The Conjuring Universe, Michael Chaves’ directorial debut is based on the Latin American folklore of La Llorona, a vengeful ghost who roams near bodies of water mourning her children who she drowned in a jealous rage after discovering her husband was cheating on her. Although Chaves doesn’t make the most of the absorbing background story, the film is still an entertaining watch with a handful of effective scares. He does a good job of establishing Anna (Linda Cardellini) and her children and the film is crisply shot by Michael Burgess.
4) The Conjuring 2
The Conjuring 2 isn’t as strong as the first film – it is overlong which severely impacts the pacing and just isn’t quite as interesting a story as the first one was. However, horror-maestro James Wan delivers in spades on the scare-front and the film has some truly frightening sequences and there are also some great performances from the cast. Only Wan could have made or been given permission to make this film as 134 minutes for a horror film is uncommonly long and whilst there is a lot of character development (and self-indulgence), 20 minutes could fairly easily have been chopped off and the film would almost be as strong as the original. This is definitely its main problem which is to its detriment. The film bears many similarities to William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and there are a couple of moments where the film leaves a bit of a sour taste as it reiterates many of the clichéd elements of superior horror films. Coming off a near-perfect original, it’s a shame The Conjuring 2 isn’t a knock-out, but that was always going to be impossible and there is still a lot to like in this film.
3) The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It represents a welcome change of direction compared to the first two films in that it delves from the haunted house formula and is more of a police procedural crime thriller. The story the film is based on is riveting, even if some creative liberties have been taken with it for it to fit the horror genre. The performances are all excellent, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as the Warren’s again are the centrepiece of the franchise and the film expands and revolves around their strong relationship. James Wan is not behind the camera this time around, with The Curse of La Llorona’s Michael Chaves inheriting the mantle. Chaves’ direction attempts to ape Wan’s from the use of title cards and a prologue sequence at the beginning to the general tone of the film. However, when it comes to the horror aspect of the film, Chaves just does not craft the scares in as sophisticated a fashion as Wan. I was riveted from start to finish but there is always the question of what if this film had been directed by James Wan and I think if had, the result here would have been extraordinary. If the film doubled down on its scares or chose to eliminate them completely and spent longer developing its characters and establishing the stakes, this could have been a masterpiece.
2) Annabelle: Creation
Annabelle: Creation is a marked improvement over its predecessor and is suitably scary, features good character development and is shot beautifully by cinematographer Maxime Alexandre. It also ties itself nicely into the wider universe but not enough to detract from the film – director David F. Sandberg still manages to satisfy on a standalone level. One must applaud Sandberg for having a go at crafting many different types of scares and seeing what sticks and there are several sequences which are superbly crafted. Unfortunately, the film does stick to convention at times and there are a few sections bordering on comedy but it is so, so much better than its predecessor in every level. When the film works, it’s superb and it’s nice and tightly paced. It’s astounding how much of a shift in quality this is from the first film which had no hope.
1) The Conjuring
The Conjuring is by far and away the best film in the series and also represents a career best for director James Wan, which this film really helped to propel his career. The film is suitably scary, very atmospheric and has a fascinating narrative. Wan develops the characters superbly, in particular Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, who are great as The Warren’s. Although the scares aren’t the most original, it’s in the execution which allows this film to really deliver and some of the set pieces in this film are mesmerising. The Conjuring is a film that is even better on rewatches and when we come back to look on the horror genre in the 2010’s, this film will definitely be remembered.
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