The Conjuring Universe Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked"-where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted accolades. This week, I'm profiling The Conjuring Universe ahead of the release of the latest installment "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It" this Friday in theaters and streaming on HBO Max. 

The Conjuring Universe Ranked:

6.Annabelle: Creation (C-)

5.The Curse of La Llorona (C)

4.The Nun (B-)

3.The Conjuring 2 (B-)

2.Annabelle Comes Home (B)

1.The Conjuring (B+)

Top Dog: The Conjuring (2013)

Nearly 8 years after its release, The Conjuring remains the standard-setting benchmark for modern supernatural horror. Following the spectacular ball-dropping failure of Insidious, James Wan recovered gracefully with a film that possesses an incredible underlying suspense to jump scare ratio as well as a simple yet engrossing narrative that is elevated by the well-developed, likeable characters that occupy it. 

Lowlight: Annabelle: Creation (2017)

I'm still kind of blown away that David F. Sandberg followed up the pretty great and surprisingly emotionally resonant Lights Out with something as universally inept as Annabelle: Creation. The expanded origin story for the demonic doll that serves as the franchise's de facto mascot is completely absurd, the pacing is strangely sluggish for a movie in this subgenre and the attempts at scares are underwhelming at best and laugh-out-loud funny at worst (there's one scene in particular involving a supporting character being dragged into a shed at the farmhouse where the bulk of the film takes place that wouldn't have felt out of place in any entry of the Scary Movie franchise).   

Most Underrated: Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

The contained setting of the Warren family (Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson) house, its well-meaning but naïve young characters (Madison Iseman, Mckenna Grace, Katie Sarife, Michael Cimino) that inadvertently set a night of unfathomable terror into motion with their persistent curiosity and constant perilous encounters with a wide array of devious supernatural entities gives Annabelle Comes Home a really entertaining 80's funhouse vibe that makes it a refreshingly lighthearted deviation from the intricate mysterious hauntings of the main franchise.  

Most Overrated: Annabelle: Creation (2017)

Every time that I'm reminded that Annabelle: Creation is not only widely regarded as the clear best entry among The Conjuring spin-offs, but as something that's not too far of from the quality of the first two entries, I have to hang in my head in disgust. Even the pretty much wall-to-wall average The Curse of La Llorona had more storytelling juice and clever attempts to generate jolts than this generic, scare-free dud that kind of just nonchalantly exists for 110 minutes.

Top Overhated Spin-Off: The Nun (2018)

While The Nun does fall victim to the same overreliance on jump scares that has been a common thread between nearly all of the Conjuring spin-offs and features some mediocre acting from a cast (Taissa Farmiga, Demian Bichir, Jonas Bloquet) that is far more talented than what they showed here, director Corin Hardy's ability to establish a mesmerizing gothic atmosphere and the subsequent injection of ever-present gloom that it brings to this Romanian monastery-set demons vs. the Catholic Church story is enough to make The Nun a minor success.