The Conjuring Universe Ranked

Welcome to "Ranked", a weekly series where I rank a franchise or filmography from worst to best and hand out assorted related superlatives. This week, I'm profiling "The Conjuring" Universe in honor of the release of the "final" installment "The Conjuring: Last Rites"-which is in theaters now. 

The Conjuring Universe Ranked:

9.The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (C-)

8.Annabelle: Creation (C-)

7.Annabelle (C-)

6.The Curse of La Llorona (C)

5.The Nun II (C)

4.The Nun (C+)

3.The Conjuring 2 (C+)

2.Annabelle Comes Home (B-)

1.The Conjuring (B)

Top Dog: The Conjuring (2013)

As an Insidious hater, I was ready to write off The Conjuring right away. Thankfully, it ended up being one of the best horror movies James Wan has ever made. There's a really classical feel to Wan's direction that allows for the atmosphere to gradually intensify before reaching its spooky supernatural peak in the final half hour or so and grounding the film in sincere, relatable family drama driven by the Warrens (Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga) empathy for the people involved in the cases they take on  makes the film feel human enough to care about whether the flock of vengeful demons that are haunting a Rhode Island farmhouse claim the souls they're seeking.      

Bottom Feeder: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

While it feels sort of odd naming an entry in the mothership franchise as the worst given how the majority of the spinoffs have turned out, The Devil Made Me Do It contains the most half-assed jump scare attempts of the entire franchise and the legal drama elements to the plot just aren't consistently compelling enough to forgive how little interest it has in fulfilling its obligations as a supernatural horror movie.   

Most Underrated: Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

Even 6+ years after its release, the final(?) Annabelle movie being the best of the bunch by far remains a true shock. Longtime Conjuring universe scribe Gary Dauberman relishes the opportunity to move over to the director's chair by making a contained, low-ish stakes teen funhouse horror movie that brought a refreshing sense of playfulness to this normally buttoned-up franchise.   

Most Overrated: The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Letting the jump scare genie out of the bottle so early was a bizarre miscalculation from Wan that erodes much of the spooky atmospherics of the original and turns this into a much more tedious, silly outing than its predecessor. Admittedly, a rewatch could cause me to soften or change this take entirely since I haven't seen it shortly after it released on home video in October 2016, but this is how I feel about it right now and I can't obscure the fact just because I haven't the seen movie in a long time.