100 Fun Facts About The Conjuring

Which two actors play Ed and Lorraine Warren in the four main Conjuring films?

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. Before shooting the first film they spent about three days with the real Lorraine Warren, visiting her at home to absorb her manner and her style.

Who directed the first two Conjuring films?

James Wan. He left horror to make the action blockbuster Furious 7, then returned for the sequel, saying he wanted to nurture 'my baby that I created'.

In The Conjuring, the Perron family move into a haunted farmhouse in which US state?

Rhode Island. The real farmhouse stands in Harrisville, and in 2015 its owners sued the studio, saying the film had brought a siege of trespassing fans to their door.

In The Conjuring, at what time does every clock in the Perron farmhouse stop?

3:07 a.m. is the minute the farmhouse's accused witch was pronounced dead, having hanged herself after cursing anyone who took her land.

In The Conjuring, what is the name of the accused witch whose spirit possesses Carolyn Perron?

Bathsheba Sherman. On screen the witch is played by a man: Joseph Bishara, who also composed the film's score.

In The Conjuring, who refuses to enter the Perrons' new farmhouse?

The dog. Sadie will not cross the threshold on moving day, and the next morning the family finds her dead in the yard.

Which haunted object does Ed add to the Warrens' artifact room at the end of The Conjuring?

A music box. It was April Perron's, and she says that when its tune stops her unseen friend Rory appears in its glass, standing right behind you.

The Conjuring was shot in which North Carolina city, also the filming home of Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill?

Wilmington. The Warrens' lecture-hall scenes were filmed at the city's university while students were away on spring break, and the real Lorraine Warren sat among the extras in the audience.

Which game do the Perron girls play in The Conjuring, only for something unseen to join in?

Hide-and-clap. The seeker may ask the hiders for three claps, and when Carolyn plays it with April she hears clapping from a spot where no child is hiding.

What do the Perrons find boarded up in their new farmhouse in The Conjuring?

A cellar. Roger explores it by matchlight on the first night, and it is where Lorraine later sees the spirit of a mother who was made to kill her own child.

By its makers' account, why did the ratings board give The Conjuring an R?

It was simply too scary. Asked what could be cut for a PG-13, the board named no scene at all, which surprised the director: the film is neither gory nor especially violent.

The Conjuring cost about $20 million; roughly how much did it gross worldwide?

$320 million, about sixteen times its budget. Test screenings had gone so well that the studio was already developing a sequel three days before the film opened.

Which service's opening-night audiences gave The Conjuring an A−, then rare for a horror film?

CinemaScore. One of its analysts said a great grade for a horror film used to be a B−, 'even when they're good', and that an F for horror was like a B− for a comedy.

Author Gerald Brittle sued over the Conjuring films, citing his exclusive deal with the Warrens for which 1980 book?

The Demonologist. Brittle claimed $900 million, saying the films drew on case files the Warrens had promised to him alone, and the studio settled with him in December 2017.

The Conjuring 2 sends the Warrens to which London borough to investigate a poltergeist?

Enfield. The real case centred on two sisters aged 11 and 13, and investigators from the Society for Psychical Research spent the best part of two years in the family's council house recording it.

Which infamous American haunting do the Warrens investigate in the opening of The Conjuring 2?

The Amityville house. During a seance there Lorraine relives the murders committed in the house, then has her first vision of the demon nun and of Ed being impaled.

In The Conjuring 2, what is the name of the elderly man whose spirit speaks through Janet Hodgson?

Bill Wilkins. He says he went blind, had a haemorrhage and died in his chair, but he proves to be only a pawn of the demon that is breaking Janet's will.

In The Conjuring 2, what name does Lorraine scratch into her Bible, then later use to banish the demon nun?

Valak. Knowing a demon's name gives dominion over it, so the word Lorraine scrawled without knowing why becomes the weapon that sends it back to Hell.

Which Elvis Presley song does Ed Warren play on guitar for the Hodgson children in The Conjuring 2?

Can't Help Falling in Love. The children's father took the family's records when he left, so Ed buys them an Elvis album, and when the record player fails he picks up a guitar.

In The Conjuring 2, the demon nun charges at Lorraine out of which object in the Warrens' own home?

A painting. Ed had painted the nun after seeing her in a dream, unaware she was the figure in his wife's visions, and the demon brings the canvas to life.

Why did a priest bless The Conjuring 2's set on day one?

Strange events on the first film's shoot. One producer said crew kept waking in the small hours and things on set broke or moved, so on day one a priest from New Mexico blessed the new set.

In The Conjuring 2, what turns the tree outside the Hodgsons' house into the spike from Lorraine's vision?

A lightning strike. It leaves the sharpened stump on which Lorraine has foreseen Ed impaled, and moments later he is hanging from the window above it, holding on to Janet.

Which haunted toy from the Hodgson house joins the Warrens' collection at the end of The Conjuring 2?

A Crooked Man zoetrope. It belongs to Billy, the youngest Hodgson, and the demon borrows the shape of the nursery-rhyme figure spinning inside it to stalk the boy.

In The Conjuring 2, what persuades the Warrens to walk away from the Hodgson case for a time?

A video of Janet faking it. A skeptical investigator films the girl wrecking the kitchen herself, and the Warrens are on the train home before they realise the haunting is real.

The Devil Made Me Do It is based on the 1981 trial of which man, who claimed demonic possession?

Arne Cheyenne Johnson. The judge refused to hear the possession defence, ruling it could never be proved, and Johnson served about five years for manslaughter.

In The Devil Made Me Do It, what does Ed suffer during the opening exorcism?

Heart attack. Ed has seen the demon leave the boy for a new host, but by the time he wakes in hospital his warning comes too late.

In The Devil Made Me Do It, who turns out to be the occultist behind the curse?

Kastner's daughter Isla. The retired priest had raised her in secret, and it was his own years of studying the occult that drew her into it.

Where was The Devil Made Me Do It filmed in mid-2019?

Atlanta, Georgia. Cameras rolled there in June 2019, but the pandemic stalled the reshoots and pushed the release back from September 2020 to June 2021.

Alongside cinemas, The Devil Made Me Do It streamed for one month on which service?

HBO Max. With many cinemas still shut or half-empty in the pandemic, Warner Bros. sent every film on its 2021 slate to the service on the same day it opened in theatres.

Which director took over the main series for The Devil Made Me Do It and Last Rites?

Michael Chaves. He had just made The Curse of La Llorona for one of the series' producers, who called him 'a perfect fit' for the next film, and he went on to direct The Nun II as well.

The Conjuring: Last Rites dramatises which real case?

The Smurl family. On screen, as in 1986, they take their story to the press and come to regret it: the neighbours turn on them, convinced they wanted the attention.

In Last Rites, the haunted family moves to West Pittston in which state?

The action is set in 1986, twenty-two years after the Warrens' first encounter with the cursed mirror.

Which haunted object is at the centre of Last Rites?

An antique mirror. The Warrens first faced it in 1964, when a vision in it sent the pregnant Lorraine into labour; 22 years later a grandfather buys it at a swap meet as a confirmation gift.

Mia Tomlinson joined Last Rites as the grown-up version of which returning character?

Judy Warren. Sterling Jerins had played the Warrens' daughter since 2013, but the 1986 story needed her old enough to be engaged, so the part was recast.

Which Bohemian Rhapsody actor plays former policeman Tony Spera in Last Rites?

Ben Hardy. His Tony has quit the police after a call that nearly killed him, and during the final fight with the demon he is the one who rescues Lorraine from the basement.

Last Rites' $84 million US debut in 2025 trailed only which Stephen King adaptation and its sequel among horror openings?

It. The 2017 film opened to $123 million and its sequel to $91 million; forecasts had put Last Rites nearer $50 million before it beat every other horror debut.

In Last Rites, the haunted family is terrorised by an old woman, a young woman and a man wielding what?

An axe. Lorraine learns that the man used it to kill his wife and her mother on that land, and that a single demon now works all three spirits like puppets.

In January 2026, Warner Bros. dated a Conjuring prequel for September 2027 under which title?

The Conjuring: First Communion. The prequel went into development within weeks of Last Rites breaking the franchise's box-office records, with the same two writers on the script.

Which spin-off was the Conjuring franchise's highest-grossing film until 2025, earning about $366 million on a $22 million budget?

The Nun. It drew some of the worst reviews of the series, and opening-night audiences graded it a mere C, yet no Conjuring film out-earned it until Last Rites.

John R. Leonetti directed the 2014 spin-off Annabelle after doing which job on The Conjuring?

Cinematographer. Leonetti had photographed The Conjuring, and his promotion paid off: made for $6.5 million, Annabelle took in about forty times that worldwide.

In Annabelle: Creation, what is the trade of Samuel Mullins, the grieving father at the centre of the story?

Dollmaker. He and his wife prayed to any power that would let them see their dead daughter again, and what answered asked their permission to move into one of his dolls.

One of its producers pitched Annabelle Comes Home as which family comedy 'with Annabelle'?

Night at the Museum. The plot earns the comparison: let out of her glass case, the doll acts as a beacon that wakes the other haunted objects in the Warrens' artifact room for one long night.

Which actress plays the demon nun in The Conjuring 2 and the two spin-offs built around her?

Bonnie Aarons. In 2023 she sued the studio, saying it had not paid her a fair share of the money made from merchandise bearing her likeness as the nun.

In The Nun, what does Sister Irene insist on doing before facing the demon?

Taking her final vows. Irene arrives at the abbey still a novice and asks the priest with her to make her a professed nun there, in the middle of the horror.

The Curse of La Llorona is only loosely tied to the Conjuring Universe through which returning character?

Father Perez. His mention of the doll from Annabelle was meant as a hidden Easter egg, and the series' producer has since said the film 'can't count' as part of the universe.

The Nun sends a priest and a novice to investigate a death at a remote abbey in which country?

Romania. The Vatican treats the young nun's hanging as a suicide, but it proves to have been a sacrifice, made so the abbey's demon could not take her body as its vessel.

The real Annabelle doll kept by the Warrens was what kind of toy?

A Raggedy Ann. A student nurse had been given it as a birthday present; the Warrens said an inhuman spirit was working through it and had a case specially built to shut it in.

Which comedian bought the Warrens' home in 2025?

Matt Rife. He bought the house in Monroe with an online ghost hunter and became legal guardian of everything in it, the Annabelle doll included, for at least five years.

The Warrens' investigation of a family's home in a former funeral parlour inspired which 2009 film?

The Haunting in Connecticut. The Warrens declared the house infested by demons, but the writer hired to tell the story later disowned it, saying the family could not keep their accounts straight.

Parapsychologist Guy Lyon Playfair, who worked the real 1977 poltergeist case, said the Warrens did what?

Turned up once, uninvited. Playfair recalled Ed telling him there was a lot of money to be made from the case, which he said was all he needed to hear before keeping out of his way.

The Annabelle doll has a hidden cameo in which 2018 superhero film from The Conjuring's director?

Aquaman slips the doll in as an in-joke from the man who directed both films, and she turns up again in Shazam!, made by the director of Annabelle: Creation.

Forbes called The Conjuring Universe the first successful film universe since which one?

Marvel set the template, and the horror series copied it on a fraction of the money: Annabelle alone earned about 40 times its $6.5 million budget.

Why did YouTube pull a short advertisement for The Nun from its platform in August 2018?

An unskippable jump scare broke the site's rules on shocking content; the clip was one small piece of a campaign that cost about $90 million.

In The Conjuring 2, what does young Janet Hodgson play with shortly before her family's haunting begins?

A Ouija board starts the trouble on screen; the real 1977 story broke when the girls' mother called the police to say she had seen furniture moving.

In the Conjuring films, the Warrens keep the Annabelle doll locked inside what in their artifact room?

A glass case made sacred with a priest's help holds the doll, and Annabelle Comes Home shows why: once a babysitter's friend opens it, the demon is loose in the house.

The actress playing novice Irene in The Nun is related to the films' Lorraine Warren star how?

Her younger sister Taissa nearly lost the part for that very reason: the director did not want a relative of the series' star until her audition won him over.

Which Footloose star led a 1983 TV film about the trial behind The Devil Made Me Do It?

Kevin Bacon starred in NBC's The Demon Murder Case a year before Footloose made him famous, and nearly four decades before the story reached the big screen.

Annabelle Comes Home opened in second place at the US box office, beaten by which Pixar sequel?

Toy Story 4, a rival film about playthings that come to life, kept the doll off the top spot; her $20.3 million weekend was the lowest start in the series.

In Annabelle (2014), which real cult is on the TV news just before the Forms' neighbours are murdered?

The Manson Family and the Tate murders fill the news that night, shortly before cultists break in next door and the doll's troubles begin.

La Llorona, the ghost of the 2019 film tied to The Conjuring Universe, has a Spanish name meaning what?

The Weeping Woman is said to wander near water mourning the children she drowned, and the film was sold under that English title in some countries.

In Annabelle: Creation, which disease has left the orphan Janice disabled before the demon targets her?

Polio has already weakened Janice, and the demon exploits it: it hurls her from a stairlift, leaves her in a wheelchair, then possesses her.

The Nun II moves the demon's hunt from a remote abbey to a boarding school in which country?

France hosted the shoot as well as the story: the school stands in Tarascon, where a priest is burned alive in the opening scene, and filming took place in Provence.

Which future Kissing Booth star plays Christine, one of the five Perron daughters, in The Conjuring?

Joey King appeared in four films in 2013, among them White House Down and Oz the Great and Powerful, five years before her Netflix breakout.

Which Ghostbusters: Afterlife star plays the Warrens' young daughter in Annabelle Comes Home?

Mckenna Grace took over the role from the actress who played it in the first two Conjuring films, and reviewers singled out her performance for praise.

Which punk band's London Calling features in The Conjuring 2, a story set in 1977 England?

The Clash did not release the song until December 1979, two years after the film's haunting begins, so the Hodgsons could not have heard it yet.

Which 1960s British band recorded Time of the Season, heard in The Conjuring's 1971-set story?

The Zombies had already split up when the single became an American hit in early 1969, a ghostly sort of success that suits the film.

Which Lord of the Rings actress plays the bedridden Esther Mullins in Annabelle: Creation?

Miranda Otto, the trilogy's Éowyn, plays her as a recluse hiding a disfigured face: years earlier the demon, posing as her dead daughter, gouged out her eye.

Which actress, Velma in the live-action Scooby-Doo films, plays the mother in The Curse of La Llorona?

Linda Cardellini plays a widowed Los Angeles caseworker in 1973, in a film first announced as The Children before it took the ghost's name.

At the end of The Devil Made Me Do It, the young man on trial is convicted of which crime?

Manslaughter, not murder, was the real jury's verdict too, and the man served about five years of a 10-to-20-year sentence.

In The Devil Made Me Do It, whom does the possessed young man stab to death early in the story?

His landlord, who in real life also employed the man's girlfriend at a kennel, was stabbed after a day of heavy drinking turned into a quarrel.

Annabelle (2014) lost its opening weekend by less than $400,000 to which David Fincher thriller?

Gone Girl took $37.5 million to the doll's $37.1 million, in what was then only the second October weekend to launch two films above $30 million.

The 1964 prologue of The Conjuring: Last Rites shows which milestone in the Warrens' family life?

Their daughter's birth nearly ends in tragedy: the baby is stillborn after Lorraine collapses on a case, and revives only as her mother prays.

The Conjuring: Last Rites ends with actors from the earlier films returning as guests at what event?

A wedding, that of the Warrens' grown-up child, gathers the Perron, Hodgson and Glatzel actors in one room, with the first film's director among the guests.

Which working title, suggested by its director, did The Conjuring carry before its release?

The Warren Files was dropped before the marketing began, and the film went back to the name its first producer had given the project years earlier.

The Conjuring took the opening-weekend record for an original R-rated horror film from which rival?

The Purge had set the mark only a month earlier; the ghost story beat it with $41.9 million and then lost less than half its audience in week two.

Which studio lost a six-way bidding war for The Conjuring in 2009, yet ended up making the film?

New Line Cinema picked the project up after the winning bidder, Summit, failed to close its deal; the producer spent nearly 14 years trying to get the film made.

Which publisher launched its horror imprint in 2021 with the five-issue series The Conjuring: The Lover?

DC Comics made it the first title of DC Horror: a prequel to The Devil Made Me Do It that follows a college student stalked by something sinister.

Which Six Feet Under actress plays Carolyn Perron, the possessed mother in The Conjuring?

Lili Taylor returned to the part twelve years later, turning up as a guest in the closing scenes of The Conjuring: Last Rites.

Why did the owners of the real Perron farmhouse sue the makers of The Conjuring in 2015?

Fans kept vandalising it and breaking in after the film came out, said the couple, who had lived there quietly since 1987; the case was dismissed in 2017.

What was unusual about the sequence in which The Conjuring's scenes were filmed in early 2012?

It followed the story from first scene to last, a rare luxury that 2014's Annabelle repeated so its actors always knew where their characters stood emotionally.

In The Conjuring, why does the Perron exorcism need approval directly from the Vatican?

They aren't church members, so the request must go to Rome; with time running out, Ed ties Carolyn to a chair and performs the rite himself.

Which priest, the Warrens' church ally since The Conjuring, is driven to his death in Last Rites?

Father Gordon is attacked while seeking help for the haunted family, and his death is what draws the Warrens' child, and then her retired parents, into the case.

In The Nun, what happens to Father Burke in the abbey graveyard on his first night?

He is buried alive after visions of a boy he failed to save lure him outside, and he survives only because the novice Irene comes to his rescue.

In The Nun, the gateway beneath the abbey was once sealed by knights using a vial holding what?

The blood of Christ held the rift shut until wartime bombs broke it open, and the heroes end the film by using the same relic again.

In The Nun, the supply man who finds the body and guides the Vatican's team goes by which nickname?

Frenchie admits only at the end that his real name is Maurice, and by then the demon has slipped inside him, which sets up the sequel.

In The Nun II, the demon is hunting a hidden relic, the eyes of which early Christian martyr?

St. Lucy turns out to be an ancestor of the heroine, which is why the demon's fire cannot burn her once the relic is found.

David F. Sandberg was hired to direct Annabelle: Creation after early cuts of which horror film of his?

Lights Out grew out of his own 2013 short film, and the feature was produced by the company of The Conjuring's director, which is how the two met.

Annabelle: Creation child actress Samara Lee was named after the ghostly villain of which horror film?

The Ring's Samara Morgan gave her the name, and she had already watched The Exorcist before filming, so the set held few terrors for her.

Why did the Warrens' real artifact collection, home of the Annabelle doll, close to the public?

Zoning violations shut it: the collection sat at the back of Lorraine's own house, a residential property being used for something else.

By the Warrens' account, the woman who gave them the real Annabelle doll in the 1970s was what?

A student nurse named Donna said the doll moved by itself; a medium told her it held the spirit of a dead seven-year-old girl.

How did the judge treat the possession defence in the real trial behind The Devil Made Me Do It?

He rejected it outright, ruling that such a claim could never be proven in a court of law, so the lawyers fell back on arguing self-defence.

Which Run Lola Run star plays the sceptical researcher Anita Gregory in The Conjuring 2?

Franka Potente, also known from the Bourne films, plays a real member of the Society for Psychical Research who studied the case in the 1970s.

Which Euphoria and A Wrinkle in Time actress joins The Nun II as the young novice Sister Debra?

Storm Reid's novice is handed a dead priest's rosary whose emblem, a saint's family crest, gives the heroines their first clue to what the demon wants.

Before late reshoots made the villain a nun, what was The Conjuring 2's chief evil spirit designed as?

A winged demon was filmed first, but the director felt the design did not fit, and the nun was added in extra shooting three months before release.

Before the third Conjuring film became a trial story, the series' first director suggested which monster?

A werewolf, in the style of An American Werewolf in London, was his idea, and Ed Warren really did publish a book titled Werewolf in 1991.

Which composer of The Conjuring's score also appears on screen in heavy make-up as the film's witch?

Joseph Bishara had already played the demon of Insidious for the same director, and he returns as creatures in several later films of the series.

Which spectral hound of English folklore does Annabelle set loose in Annabelle Comes Home?

Black Shuck is said to roam the coast and countryside of East Anglia, sometimes as an omen of death; the film turns him into a beast that attacks the babysitter's suitor.

In The Devil Made Me Do It, the former priest who helps the Warrens once studied which satanic cult?

Disciples of the Ram was his field of study, which lets him tell the Warrens that the totem under the house was planted on purpose to curse the family.

Which company, founded in 2014 by the first two Conjuring films' director, co-produces the series?

Atomic Monster signed a first-look deal with the series' studio when it launched, and it also produced the related film The Curse of La Llorona.

The Conjuring earned more in which country than in any other market outside North America?

Mexico gave the film $18.9 million after it opened there in first place, and the sequel's best market abroad was the same country.