A half-baked spinoff the director denied was part of its own massive franchise brings the wrath to streaming

When is a spinoff not a spinoff? That’s usually a fairly straightforward question, but director Michael Chaves had some serious issues with The Curse of La Llorona being folded into the expanded Conjuring franchise.

The filmmaker came right out and denied that his commercially successful – albeit critically shunned – supernatural nightmare was an official part of canon, even though it was produced by James Wan, features Tony Amendola’s returning Father Perez, and even saw Annabelle pop up in a flashback scene. It’s not as if he’s got a leg to stand on, then, never mind the fact it’s regarded by audiences, fans, and even Warner Bros. as a dyed in the wool Conjuring flick.

Either way, The Curse of La Llorona – which is definitely a Conjuring spinoff based on everything besides the words that emerged directly from its creator’s mouth – has brought its wrath back to the streaming charts, after FlixPatrol revealed it to be one of the most-watched features on the Google Play Movies global rankings.

If you want to split hairs, the Conjuring Universe would still be the highest-grossing IP in the history of horror even if you removed the $123 million Chaves’ occult tale of terror hauled in at the box office, but the fact his very next stint behind the camera would see him replace his mentor for The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It of all things would paint the pretty clear picture of the 1970-set chiller being part of the furniture, even though he was the one who started the debate in the first place.