The Conjuring 2 (2016)

The Conjuring 2 (2016) sends Ed and Lorraine Warren to the Enfield poltergeist case in north London, and it puts a demonic nun in Lorraine’s visions before the family ever calls. James Wan directed, and co-wrote the script with Carey Hayes, Chad Hayes, and David Leslie Johnson. Warner Bros. released the film in the United States on June 10, 2016. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson return as the Warrens. Madison Wolfe plays Janet Hodgson. It was a larger hit than the first film, and it spun the nun off into her own series.

At a glance

Release date	June 10, 2016 (United States)
Director	James Wan
Writers	Carey Hayes, Chad Hayes, James Wan, and David Leslie Johnson
Starring	Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Frances O’Connor, Madison Wolfe, Simon McBurney
Runtime	134 minutes
Rating	R
Genre	Supernatural horror
Budget	About $40 million
Box office	About $102.5 million domestic; about $320.4 million worldwide

Plot summary

The film opens on the Amityville investigation, and on a vision Lorraine has there of a demon in a nun’s habit and of Ed’s death. She asks him to stop taking cases. He does not quite agree. In 1977, in a council house in Enfield, Peggy Hodgson and her children start hearing a voice in the walls. Janet, eleven, is the one the voice uses. Furniture moves. A neighbor and then the press get involved. The Society for Psychical Research sends Maurice Grosse and, later, a skeptic, Anita Gregory.

The church asks the Warrens to look, quietly, and to say whether the family is haunted or performing. Ed plays the believer who still wants a recording. Lorraine wants one session and a flight home. The house has a second presence in it, an old man the children call the Crooked Man, and the nun from Lorraine’s vision is not staying in Amityville. Wan stages the investigation as a family under siege and as a marriage arguing about how much of this work is obedience.

Spoiler section: the ending

Gregory catches Janet staging an event, and the Warrens leave. The nun, identified in Lorraine’s research as Valak, uses the doubt to get Janet out a window. Ed and Lorraine go back. Ed is caught in the vision Lorraine saw. She names the demon, which is the film’s rule for breaking its hold, and the house goes quiet. A closing card points at the real Enfield case and at the argument over it that never ended.

Production and behind the scenes

Wan had said he might not direct another Conjuring after the 2013 film. The Enfield case, a 1977 London haunting that was photographed and disputed in the British press, pulled him back. The Hayes brothers and Johnson shaped the family story. Wan added the nun as a through-line he could use beyond this film. Farmiga and Wilson are the continuity. The Hodgsons were cast younger than a straight docudrama would have, and Wolfe carries Janet’s double duty, child and voice, without a wink at the camera.

The Enfield house was built on a stage in Los Angeles so Wan could move walls and repeat takes of the chair that slides. Location work in London covered the street. Don Burgess shot it. Joseph Bishara scored it again, with the low drones from the first film. The Crooked Man sequence is a storybook intrusion, shot differently from the rest of the house so it would feel like Janet’s room had changed medium. The nun was played in costume by Bonnie Aarons. Makeup kept the face still. The budget was about $40 million, more than double the first film.

Release and reception

Warner Bros. opened the film on June 10, 2016. It made about $40.4 million in its first weekend and about $102.5 million in the United States and Canada, with a worldwide total around $320.4 million. Reviews were stronger than most haunted-house sequels. The Enfield family and researchers have disagreed for decades about what happened in the house. The film picks a side and says so. The Nun (2018) took Valak out of Lorraine’s vision and into a prequel. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) continued the Warrens without Wan directing.

Cast

Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren
Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren
Frances O’Connor as Peggy Hodgson
Madison Wolfe as Janet Hodgson
Lauren Esposito as Margaret Hodgson
Simon McBurney as Maurice Grosse
Franka Potente as Anita Gregory
Bonnie Aarons as Valak, the demon nun

Trivia

Wilson sings Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love” at the Hodgson piano. The scene was his suggestion, and Wan kept it.
The real Enfield case ran from 1977 into 1979. The film compresses it into a shorter investigation.
Aarons’s nun was meant as a vision, not a spinoff lead. Audience response changed that plan.
The Crooked Man was played in a suit by Javier Botet, who also did creature work in other Wan-produced films.
Lorraine’s name for the demon, Valak, comes from a demonology list. The habit was a film invention.
The Amityville opening ties this film to a case the first movie only mentioned.