The Big Picture
- Valak, the creepy nun from the Conjuring movies, became a star in her own right, headlining two solo Nun installments.
- Valak was a last-minute addition to The Conjuring 2, replacing the original monster, as director James Wan wanted a scarier supernatural foe.
- Wan decided to replace the original demon with Valak because he felt the monstrous demon was too divorced from reality and needed a foe tied to the faith of the protagonist.
Ah, Valak, A.K.A. “That Creepy Nun From the Conjuring Movies”. She’s grown from just being the villain of The Conjuring 2 to becoming a full-fledged star in her own right, headlining two solo Nun installments. Much like that chilling doll Annabelle, Valak is a Conjuring character that has become famous beyond just the film franchise she originated from. Why wouldn’t she? Pop culture has always been fascinated with warped visions of nuns. They’re supposed to be the physical embodiments of sainthood. Thus, there’s always been an enticing quality to movies featuring demented incarnations of nuns or erotic features focusing on sexual depictions of nuns. Not only do these projects warp an element of reality we all consider to be immovable, but it also feels transgressive to watch something associated with religion be utilized for salacious purposes.
Given this historical precedent for unusual versions of nuns, it would make sense if Valak was always meant to be in The Conjuring 2 or even was the creation that spurred this sequel’s existence in the first place. However, Valak wasn’t always meant to be in this horror sequel. In fact, she was a last-minute addition, a hasty replacement for another monster initially set to be the main foe of The Conjuring 2. Say your holy rites, clutch your cross, and let’s dive into the history of Valak in the Conjuring franchise.
‘The Conjuring 2’ Was Supposed to Have a Different Monster
A few days after The Conjuring 2 opened to strong box office numbers, The Hollywood Reporter dropped a big revelation about Valak. She was only added to the movie in March 2016, a mere three months before the theatrical premiere of The Conjuring 2. The decision to throw away the movie’s original baddie did not come from intrusive studio executives, but apparently was entirely the idea of director James Wan, who felt the film’s supernatural foe could be scarier. This maneuver meant reshoots were in order, including overhauling big scary set pieces. In the end, though, the last-minute changes proved beneficial to The Conjuring 2, with Warner Bros./New Line Cinema quickly ordering a spin-off movie focused on a character who was such a hastily added creation.
Why Did James Wan Replace the Original ‘Conjuring 2’ Villain With Valak?
In October 2020, Wan took to his Instagram account to divulge more details about the original Conjuring 2 villain. This beast was originally an intimidating demon rooted in the designs Wan and concept designer Aaron Sims had conjured up for the character Dracula in an unrealized Castlevania movie. Massive, devoid of any bright colors, and full of horns, this creature was supposed to be the epitome of what one might see in their very worst nightmares. An impressive practical animatronic suit was created to realize this demon on-set, which could’ve made the beast even more terrifying. This would not be a rubbery CG creation hastily composited onto live-action environments but rather a tangible entity the audience could reach out and touch. All seemed well…until Wan got to the post-production process of The Conjuring 2.
In the editing bay, Wan felt that the presence of such a monstrous demon was too divorced from reality to work within a Conjuring movie. Additionally, he felt the villain of The Conjuring 2 needed to be something that tied directly into the faith of protagonist Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga). A more specific foe was then needed for this horror sequel, which resulted in the creation of that nefarious Valak. Bonnie Aarons was called upon to play the part, a role she’d reprise throughout every other appearance of Valak. Though this decision cost The Conjuring 2 an awesome, practically realized animatronic monster, it did bring the entire feature closer to Wan’s vision of what a Conjuring sequel should look like.
Valak Was the Right Choice to Spawn Several Spin-Offs
With all due respect to Wan, it is amusing that the solution to making a new villain for The Conjuring 2 was rooted so much in conjuring up a new baddie that bore such a striking resemblance to another supernatural adversary from a separate Wan horror series. The first two Insidious movies heavily featured a creation called The Bride in Black, an entity with white power all over their face dressed in raggedy versions of garbs largely associated with femme-presenting people. There are enough overlapping physical similarities between the two creations to lead one to wonder if Wan decided to visually expand upon a horror film villain he was already familiar with when the original Conjuring 2 beast simply wasn’t very imposing on-camera.
Meanwhile, Wan’s reasoning for ditching that gargantuan demon suggests that “realism” was always on his mind when it came to Conjuring movie foes. Though these titles are very much rooted in the world of supernatural horror, they’re also films whose adversaries tend to always be recognizably human. They don’t go down the route of surrealistic horror like the original Hellraiser titles or other scary films, which feature antagonists and settings that intentionally distance themselves from anything you could consider “reality.” The Conjuring movies are not documentaries by any stretch of the imagination, but they also largely concern discernibly humanoid demons and corrupt human beings. Anything too visually outlandish like the original Conjuring 2 demon is banished to the deleted scenes. It’s a key part of these movies attempting to pass off the Warrens and their paranormal exploits as “true stories.”
The choice to shift the focus of The Conjuring 2 over to Valak herself also, intentionally or not, made putting together a spin-off movie even easier. The initial demon character might’ve been tough enough to stand out as a leading figure in modern horror cinema. Meanwhile, an evil nun is something that’s easily explainable even to folks unfamiliar with the other Conjuring movies. In every way possible, the decision to embrace Valak as a main foe at the last minute was a terrific call for The Conjuring in terms of marketing. Frankly, that original animatronic demon looks much cooler than Valak in terms of design (she just doesn’t have a lot of idiosyncratic physical traits to separate her from other evil horror nuns). Maybe it would’ve made for a more intimidating Conjuring 2 villain. But in terms of inspiring spin-off movies, merchandise, and visual symmetry with other James Wan horror titles, Valak was the right call.
