The prologue of The Conjuring 2 takes place a year before the main events of the movie
and contains the key to understanding the secret to the film’s ending.
Our first shot introduces us to the Amityville house, and you’ll notice the wallpaper of
this upstairs room depicts images from the 1967 play Not Now, Darling, a story set in
Great Britain, which would also be where Ed and Lorraine Warren would finally have their
confrontation with the inhuman spirit, Valak, who is teased at in secret in the background
of many scenes, so stick around to the end of this video to hear about all of them.
But before our heroes would travel across the pond, they have to deal with this haunting
on Long Island.
This is the case set up at the end of the first movie, when Ed and Lorraine get a call
to go investigate the house of the Lutz family, who were haunted by the ghosts of the DeFeos,
a family who was brutalized by Ronnie DeFeo Jr. who claimed to be under the influence
of a demonic presence when he committed his crimes.
Lorraine has an out of body experience where she travels through the house and sees into
the past to that fatal night.
She’s seeing these atrocities take place through the viewpoint of Ronnie DeFeo.
We can tell because Lorraine’s reflection in the mirror is replaced with that of Ronnie.
So Lorraine is using Ronnie’s ghost as a vessel so she can gain more information about
the past -- and this same concept is used against her in England, where the demon Valak
hides behind the lingering spirit of this old man so that Lorraine is unable to detect
it.
At the end of her projection, she follows one of the DeFeo children into the basement.
There she discovers a couple of mannequins, which are a signature of director James Wan,
as seen in Saw, Dead Silence and Insidious: Chapter 2.
But more importantly she encounters Valak, who attacks her shortly before she has a vision
of a man’s neck cracking.
However, if we go back to that scene and turn up the lights, we can actually see that it’s
her husband, Ed, leading her to fear for his life just as he feared for hers in the first
movie, which, by the way, comes back around here in the sequel.
In the first one, Ed is wary of getting involved in anything paranormal because of an intense
vision that took a huge toll on Lorraine in 1970.
“A couple months ago we were working on a case, she saw something.
It took a real big piece.”
...and this is confirmed to be Valak in The Conjuring 2.
“I had a vision in Amityville.
It was the same one I had 7 years ago.”
So Valak is the big antagonist that has been built up from the beginning of the franchise.
To learn all of it’s hidden secrets, stick around to the end of this video.
Welcome to Things You Missed.
In today’s episode, it should be obvious by now what movie I’m covering.
This is at least one of my top 3 Christmas movies and probably one of the scariest movies
I’ve seen.
There was a lot of excitement in the horror community when it was announced that the second
Conjuring would focus on the infamous Enfield Poltergeist, one of the most highly debated
paranormal investigations of all time.
If you look at the supposed paranormal activity caught on tape today, it’s pretty obvious
how everything was faked, but the sheer amount of people involved who claimed to believe
that something supernatural was happening is enough to raise an eyebrow.
The movie introduces the idea that the demon forced the young girl, Janet, to fake an incident
to shatter her credibility with the press, which was probably inspired by the theory
in real life that the girls started faking certain things once they saw how much attention
the real paranormal events garnered them; and the main investigator, Maurice Grosse,
still believed the haunting to be genuine.
There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s jump back into the Things You Missed.
With the sounds of The Clash, we are transported into 1977 England, where we’re introduced
to the Hodgson family.
The girl who is most associated with the poltergeist is 11 year old Janet, and she gets caught
smoking a cigarette at school, but she was actually just holding it for her friend.
However, none of the adults believe her.
They are shown to be hypocrites, scolding her for her behaviour while engaging in the
same behaviour themselves.
This is the perfect character introduction for Janet, because nobody believes she’s
telling the truth due to her age, which is exactly what happens when she becomes involved
in the hauntings, making the situation seem that much more hopeless for her.
There’s actually a deleted scene, where Ed, Lorraine and Maurice discuss the possibility
of Janet being possessed with Mrs. Hodgson, and Ed brings up an interesting point about
Janet’s age.
PEGGY: “What about Janet?
I want to know.
Is she possessed?
ED: “It’s too soon to say.
The onset of puberty, the fracturing of the family.
These are things that can definitely attract a negative energy.”
This is actually a real phenomenon -- the majority of poltergeist claims do involve
pubescent aged kids.
Ed’s explanation is that the spirits are drawn to the negative emotions associated
with hitting puberty, which in Janet’s case are heightened by the fact that her parents
recently went through a divorce.
But the opposite argument can be made, rationalists will say that because of their puberty experience,
these kids are lashing out and creating these so called “paranormal” spectacles as an
attention seeking method.
So this dichotomy is part of the central conflict in the movie.
After returning home from school, Janet and her older sister, Margaret, test out the spirit
board that Janet and her friend made, which is perhaps what opened their family up to
the haunting.
But I’m sure if you order this tee using the link in the description, you’ll
probably be fine.
Specifically, they ask if their father is ever coming back, and this might have attracted
the inhuman spirit because it sensed it could feed off of this negative energy.
Sure enough, that night, scary stuff starts to happen.
Janet wakes up on the floor in front of the supposedly haunted chair in the living room
and Margaret is woken up by three loud knocks on their bedroom door.
*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
There are a few instances in the movie where the poltergeist tries to scare them by knocking
in threes, like a couple nights later later, when Janet is pulled out of bed...
*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
...and when the police come to investigate, and experience the paranormal activity for themselves.
*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
The reason that the knocks always come in threes goes back to a minor detail from the
first Conjuring.
ROGER: “Oh, that’s to keep those doors from banging at night.
Otherwise it’s like… all night long, just like that.”
ED: “Does it come in threes?”
“Yeah.”
“Sometimes it’s meant as an insult to the trinity, the father, the son and holy
spirit.”
The night after Janet wakes up downstairs, even more weird stuff starts to occur, like
a swing in the backyard moving on it’s own and Janet talking in her sleep.
Margaret notices this and witnesses her sister turn towards the dark corner of the room,
apparently possessed by the spirit of the home’s previous owner, Bill Wilkins.
It’s almost like she’s having a conversation with someone in this corner, but when Margaret
goes to investigate, there’s no one there, despite the fact that all the posters on the
walls make it feel like many pairs of eyes are watching them.
But this is the exact spot where Valak would spawn at the end of the movie and during that
final scene, we get our only short glimpse at the demon’s true form, whose origins
will be explored later in this video.
The Hodgson family’s initial diagnosis of their situation is that they’re being haunted
by the ghost of Bill Wilkins, the old man who allegedly died in this chair before the
Hodgsons moved in.
When Billy Hodgson wanders downstairs for a glass of water during the night, you can
spot the ghost of Bill Wilkins, sitting in the chair as he passes by the living room.
Back in Connecticut, The Warrens start having visions about Valak.
In my episode on the first Conjuring movie, I mentioned that the paintings seen around
the house are a nod to the real life Ed Warren, who created sketches of people’s homes as
a gift in order to start a conversation about any supernatural happenings the owners might
have experienced.
It seems that he also just enjoys painting as a hobby, because in his office later in
the movie, there’s a picture of the Perron family home from the Conjuring.
But this time Ed paints a creepy nun from his dream, perhaps a sign that he too has
a little bit of clairvoyant ability, maybe just nowhere as strong as Lorraine.
Lorraine recognizes The Nun from her previous visions but does not know it’s name.
In The Conjurverse, knowing a demon’s name gives an exorcist dominion over it.
However, if you’re paying attention to the background details of many scenes, you’ll
see creepy signs of the demons name, Valak, hidden around the house in secret.
In the kitchen, this loVe ornament has a capital V, and the letters A-L-A-K are hidden on this
panel.
By the window, there’s some artwork by their daughter, Judy, which also spell out the name:
Valak.
Then in the Warren’s study, there are a series of letters arranged on the bookshelf.
If you read them from left to right, you’ll see V-A-L-A-K.
There’s also a small nun ornament on that shelf.
During this scene, Judy is making bracelets, and if you zoom in, one of them says Valak
on it.
This is a couple times where the name has appeared in Judy’s art, and I think it’s
a subtle sign that she too has the abilities of a medium like Lorraine, which is backed
up in the next scene where she is able to see Valak in the hallway, though, I guess
it’s debatable if this is just part of Lorraine’s dream, but it does seem like they’ve been
setting up the idea of Judy possibly being a medium and getting her own movie in the
future.
A couple notes on this scene by the way.
This has got to be an homage to the twins scene in the Shining, which also has a kid
having a vision of a scary entity at the end of a long hallway with flower wallpaper.
I just love how the Warrens have this wallpaper going all the way down, but they also felt
the need to put up these framed photos of… the same flowers.
But while Lorraine is in the study, she’s studying her bible, and she has it open to
a page with the headline: The Song of Solomon.
This is an interesting detail, because there are two demons we’ve met up to this point
in The Conjuring franchise, Malthus, the main antagonist of the Annabelle spin-offs and
Valak from this movie.
Both of these demons come from this 17th Century spellbook said to contain rituals for summoning
demons called The Lesser Key of Solomon.
They’re based off of Halphas and Valac respectively, who are both supposedly Presidents of Hell.
The mythological version of Valac is never associated with a Nun form, that was an invention
of the film’s director, James Wan.
The initial vision for Valak was actually more in line with the traditional appearance
of a demon, but this look was mostly scrapped in favor of having Valak appear as a creepy
nun, which fits nicely with the idea that the evil entity is attacking Lorraine’s
faith, the same reason for the three knocks that I mentioned earlier.
However, we do still see a remnant of the initial design for Valak at the end, after
Lorraine has condemned the creature back to hell, it convulses and briefly reverts back
to it’s true form before being sucked back into the underworld.
I’ll turn up the lights again so you can get a better look at the villain's actual
appearance.
I also want to note that in the real life Enfield poltergeist case, the family did allegedly
suspect the old man Bill Wilkins being the spirit that was haunting them, but there was
never anything about him being controlled by Valak, that’s strictly in the movie.
When Lorraine has the vision about Valak in the study, she envisions Valak attacking her
in Ed’s office, and she’s startled by the stereo suddenly turning on...
🎵 Hark the Herald Angels Sing 🎵
...and playing the Christmas song “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”, which is a British song, perhaps
a clue that her encounter with Valak would be in England around Christmastime.
We do hear that song during the finale when Ed tries to save Janet.
🎵 Hark the Herald Angels Sing 🎵
The vision continues with Valak manifesting behind Ed’s painting and attacking her,
during which she falls and knocks over this holy statue thing, another symbol of the demon
trying to attack her faith.
When she gets up she finds herself back in the basement in Amityville…
“WHO ARE YOU?”
“I’m spiderman.”
And when she awakes from the vision, she subconsciously scribbles somethings onto the pages of her
bible, if you're paying close attention you see her write the letters V-A-L before it cuts away, but because she’s still
in her vision, she doesn’t realize that she’s discovered the demon’s name.
There’s also a crossword puzzle next to her when she comes to, a possible sign that
she needs this missing word, Valak, in order to have dominion over the evil spirit.
Finally, when Ed and Lorraine do finally get to England, they meet with Maurice and a couple
others who are involved in the investigation at The Warrington Pub, and the drink coasters
have text reading: Valak Bitter.
There are signs other than just those about Valak.
For example, the toy train in Billy’s room could foreshadow the train ride where Ed finally
realizes that Bill Wilkins’s spirit is being controlled and the Humpty Dumpty toy on Janet
and Margaret’s dresser is one of the few toys to remain in the room after everything
is cleared out in an attempt to sanitize the evil presence.
As you may know, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, and Ed Warren nearly shares the same
fate at the end of the movie.
Whoa, Janet, wait till you get older before you get into that stuff!
Before long, a news program gave a report on the Green Street house, and the story started
to blow up in the media.
One of the interviewees on this news program is named Hazel Short.
She’s based off of a real life person.
Hazel Short was a lollipop lady, which is apparently British for crossing guard.
“I saw Janet laying flat.
And she was floating.
She was going up and down in front of the bedroom window.”
Graham Morris was also a real photographer from The Daily Mirror,
“I used to work for the daily mirror as a general news photographer.
I think the crunch came when the person on the phone yelled out and said, ‘Oh, well
we’ve all seen this, including the police.’”
We’re related.
Not really.
I mean I don’t actually know… but I know deep down that we are…
The Constables who took down the report really did give a documentary interview.
“It came off the floor maybe a half inch, I’d say, and I saw it slide off to the right
about three and a half to four feet.”
And the interview scene, of course, was based on actual interviews given by the girls in
1977.
One detail I found interesting was how in the movie, Margaret essentially says the opposite
of what she said in real life.
REPORTER: “How does it feel living in a haunted house?”
MARGARET: “I don’t know.
You don’t get used to it.
We was just a normal family before this.”
REPORTER: “How does it feel to be haunted by a poltergeist?”
JANET: “It’s not haunted.”
MARGARET: “Shut up….”
REPORTER: “Does it frighten you, the things that happen here?”
MARGARET: “Well it did at first, but now I’ve gotten more used to it, and learned
to accept the things that happen.”
I find it ironic how the movie will take such great lengths to get the little details right
when recreating these videos, but then completely exaggerate how much the Warrens were actually
involved in the story.
Apparently they were only actually there for a day or two off the 2 year investigation.
There would be more well documented reports in the media that we can compare to their
real life counterparts and discover even more Things You Missed.
Ed and Lorraine first learn of the Enfield poltergeist when their priest plays them the
audio recording of Bill Wilkins supposedly taking over Janet Hodgson’s voice.
BILL: “Knock, knock.”
MAURICE: “Very vell, who’s there?”
BILL: “Bill. Bill. Bill. Bill!"
🎵 "Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill! Bill Nye the science guy!” 🎵
Word was getting around quickly about the terror on Green Street, and the Daily Mirror
headline seen in the movie is a recreation of an actual newspaper front page from September
10th, 1977, but it seems James Wan wanted the bit about Shore’s son taken out.
Not sure what that’s about.
When the Warrens arrive in the UK, the conduct a test to see if Janet is really the one making
the demonic voices, or if she’s actually being possessed.
In the true story, this is one of the most debated aspects of the conversation.
There was some disagreement about whether it would be possible to Janet’s larynx to
produce that noise, and whether she would be able to keep it up for long periods of
time.
REPORTER: “Do you think there’s anyone there just now?”
JANET: “Yeah.
I do.”
REPORTER: “Who’s there?”
JANET: “What?”
ED: “Am I talking to the spirit that’s oppressing this family?”
BILL: “Is that what I am?”
That night, there’s another clue that Bill Wilkins in merely a pawn being controlled
by Valak.
Janet is transported from downstairs into her locked room in the middle of night, and
she sees all the crosses on the walls invert in a circle around her.
This follows the same motion that we saw earlier when the Nun’s shadow circled around Lorraine
during her vision.
Unfortunately, this technique gets kinda overused in the later spin-offs The Nun and Annabelle Comes Home.
The one monster I haven’t mentioned yet is The Crooked Man, who is a physical manifestation
of the character from Billy’s nursery rhyme zoetrope toy.
It isn’t exactly spelled out if this is Valak, or another character entirely.
I’m guessing it’s a separate entity that’s being manipulated by Valak in a similar way
to how Bill was manipulated, because you can actually see The Crooked Man lurking in the
background here as Ed goes to try to save Janet from Valak’s clutches.
There’s been some talk about a possible Crooked Man spin-off movie, but it’s hard
to say if that’s still coming in the wake of a global pandemic.
At the beginning of this video I talked about how alleged poltergeists are often heavily
associated with the negative energy of kids hitting their pubescent years and oftentimes
are the result of a troubled home life, and it seems that The Conjuring 2 acknowledges
that tendency, because The Warrens are only able confront Valak and finally send it away
after helping The Hodgson's return to a sense of normalcy in their family.
"In the meantime, Ed and I can be spending time with Peggy and the kids.
Cause they need to be a family again."
One of the reasons they are struggling is the divorce, which was potentially what caused
the dark spirit to come into their lives in the first place.
"Is Dad ever coming home?"
So it's probably no coincidence that Ed and Lorraine are what drive their demon away,
it’s both literal and figurative.
Peggy tells Ed that when her husband left he took the music with him.
“No literally, he took all the records.
My kids used to love listening to his Elvis collection.”
So by Ed buying them new Elvis albums and performing his music for the kids, he’s
kind of filling the fatherly role -- he’s helping this family patch up the void left
by the missing father and presumably weakening the hold that Valak has on the family.
“Thank you.”
*laugher*
He also helps soften the damage of the lack of father figure by helping Peggy out when
the laundry room in their building is flooded.
“Alright.
There we go.”
Ah, yes.
Ed Warren.
Plumber.
Mechanic.
Musician.
Painter.
Husband.
Father.
Priest.
And oh, yeah…
Paranormal Investigator.
But this time it would be Lorraine that saved Ed by sending Valak back to the depths of
hell and pulling him to safety, just before he fell to his death.
The Warrens place the Crooked Man zoetrope in their room of cursed objects right next
to the music box from the first movie and the Warrens celebrate Christmas with a little
bit of the King.
Happy ending.
Roll the credits, because there are a few more subliminal Things You Missed hidden inside
them.
The first is this image, which only flashes on screen for one frame, or 1/24th of a second,
where we see Valak in it’s Nun form standing over Old Man Bill in his chair.
You can see the oxygen tanks here, as if Bill is down to his final moments and Valak
is just waiting to feast on his soul.
I’m not sure what it is, but there’s definitely something creepy about The Nun’s face being
blurred.
The next subliminal image is on screen for just two frames.
Again, Valak’s face is blurred.
This is the hallway scene I discussed earlier.
Shortly after that, is this very unsettling image of the Annabelle doll sitting in the
dark.
This was probably here to tease Annabelle Creation, which came out the year after The
Conjuring 2.
The final image to flash on screen is this one, of Bill Wilkins possessed by the glowing
eyes of Valak, leaving the film on a very chilling note despite the happy ending,
and setting up for the spin-off that would come out in 2018, The Nun.
So with that, I’ve now released a Things You Missed episode on every Conjuring Universe
film to date, so click that playlist on the left to make sure you’re up to date on everything
you missed in The Conjuring, Annabelle, The Nun and La Llorona.
Of course, you know I’ll be covering The Conjuring 3 as soon as it’s available, so
make sure you subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring the deathbell for
notifications and I’ll see you in the next one.
Assuming we both survive.
*weird growling noise*