Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren skyrocketed to mainstream fame with the publicity of the Amityville case. There have of course been many films made out of that case, with the first being 1979’sThe Amityville Horror. It was only a matter of time before more of their cases were made into a film franchise and in 2013The ConjuringUniverse was born. It was created byhorror legend James Wanand has to date seven films, which have grossed close to $2 billion. Because these films are so successful and there’s so much of a repertoire of cases, they just seem to keep making them. While at first this was great news, because they were really very solid horror films, the decline in quality over the years is very noticeable. It’s time for the series to come to an end.
The first film in the seriesis 2013’sThe Conjuring. The film follows a 1971 case that the Warrens investigated in Rhode Island. The case was about a family who recently moved into a farmhouse, and started to experience hauntings. When the matriarch of the family invited the Warrens to look into her home, they discovered that it used to belong to a witch named Bathsheba Sherman who put a curse on the land. The film is one of the most profitable horror films in history, and was very well received by both critics and audiences.
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A sequel toThe Conjuringcame out three years later and was also received well, and there’s another one on the way set to come out this year.The trailer only just came outa couple of days ago and it looks very dark and very scary, which is true to the brand of this series. The directThe Conjuringfilms are not so much where the problem lies, though no one has seen the third one yet, but the vast amount of spinoffs they’ve done to make this a real film universe are what really waters down this franchise.
The first spinoff ofThe Conjuring, which only came out a year after the original film, was where suspicions were raised as to how good this universe would actually be. It’s not a very good signwhen the franchise shows such big cracks, so early on. The film in question is 2014’sAnnabelle. It’s an entirely fictional story, unlike the films in the directThe Conjuringseries, about a real-life haunted item found in Ed and Lorraine’s paranormal museum. That item of course being the infamous cursed Annabelle doll. It’s just kind ofa dull, nonsensical horror storyand disappointing when compared toThe Conjuring. There have been threeAnnabellemovies now, and 2/3 of them have been pretty terrible. The other two spinoff series within theConjuringUniverse, unfortunately, seem to be even worse, and that’s the big problem the universe seems to have.
Outside ofThe ConjuringandAnnabelletitles, there have been two other films in the universe.The Nunfrom 2018 andThe Curse of La Lloronain 2019. As of right now, both of those are lone films in their franchises but there does seem to be confirmation of a secondThe Nunfilm, though there are no details or release dates available. These two films, the only ones that kind of stand alone (with nods and characters from the other films in the universe of course) are the absolute worst ones. They feel so much as though they’re just random bland horror film scripts that have beenchanged to fit certain villainsand inserted into the franchise, and these ones are specifically bad because some communities have actually found them offensive. EspeciallyThe Curse of La Llorona, as it was accused of whitewashing a very famous Latin American story.
It’s a shame because so far, the actualThe Conjuringfilms have been great. And even though it’s not out yet, the third one looks pretty good. It’s the spinoffs, which are largely entirely fictional, where this universe goes kind of off the rails. All of the extra films feel kind of cheap, like cash grabs to capitalize on stories the viewers are interested in. The downfall ofcreating a cinematic universethat spans so many years, is that is entirely possible people will get sick of it. That’s especially so if the quality of the films is inconsistent. There also has been some mild controversy on the source material for these films. Ed and Lorraine Warren are real people, and most of these cases are made out to be true stories, but most of them have also been largely debated and some proven false. Withhow bad the last few films in this universe have been, as well as the speculation about where the stories come from, it just kind of feels like it’s time forThe Conjuring Universeto come to an end.
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