Has The Nun Been Lurking In The Conjuring Franchise From The Start?

With the release of The Nun just around the corner, the sinister Valak finally has the spotlight to herself (albeit, mostly in the shadows), and she seems primed to have a lot of audience members hiding behind their popcorn while taking in some respectable box office profit. That being said, this is hardly the first time that the titular nun of the Corin Hardy-helmed film will have given viewers the creeps. In fact, Dread Central are reporting that the seeds for the upcoming Conjuring spinoff may have been planted in plain sight since Day 1 of this unlikely cinematic universe.

First, let’s take things back to the beginning, and while the 1950s-set Nun might be the earliest installment in this saga chronologically speaking, we’re actually referring to 2013’s The Conjuring. Among a few subtle signs observed of Valak’s presence in the hit horror movie, there’s a creepy nun painting seen when we first venture into the basement of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Though it’s unclear whether director James Wan and the team already had the new spinoff in mind five years ago, it’s hard to dismiss the foreshadowing suggested in this image.

While the next film in the franchise, Annabelle, doesn’t seem to have any direct connections to The Nun, the 2015 effort was certainly fond of its ominous religious imagery, including multiple statues of nuns, and the scene of a flesh-and-blood nun sitting outside a hospital room.

Nonetheless, Valak didn’t make her first official appearance until The Conjuring 2, which, unsurprisingly, is packed with quick teases of the character. More interesting, however, is the foreshadowing in Annabelle: Creation, which is set closer in time to the events of The Nun than any other the Conjuring universe release thus far. In a photo that Sister Charlotte shares of herself and affiliates in a Romanian convent, we see the shadow of Valak looming menacingly, implying that this region will be the setting of the franchise’s next instalment.

Yikes, from the sound of things, there’s no escaping this unholy entity, and she’ll be coming to a theater near you when The Nun opens on September 7th.