The Conjuring 3 is chock full of easter eggs from secret Annabelle and Nun connections to
classic horror movie tributes and clues to the movie's big twists and reveals.
Yippee ki-yay, movie lovers, I'm Jan and in this video I'm revealing all the things
you might have missed in The Devil Made Me Do It and explaining how the movie
connects to the wider Conjuring universe. Spoilers ahead, of course, so take care.
The creepy Annabelle doll is an iconic figure in the Conjuring franchise and The Devil Made
Me Do It expands on the story behind the satanic cult "Disciples of the Ram".
In the Conjuring 3, Ed and Lorraine meet Father Kastner, a priest who investigated
and exposed "The Disciples of the Ram". Kastner tells the Warrens they shouldn't
underestimate the power of these Satanists, and when Ed asks him why someone would
target an innocent child... "The "why" is irrelevant.
The "why" is counter to everything that the Satanist stands for.
His sole aim is chaos." ...echoes what Detective Clarkin told the Forms in
Annabelle about what he'd learned about the cult. "That they did this to prove their devotion.
A sort of violence for violence's sake." While researching the Disciples of the Ram,
Kastner collected various occult objects and books, and kept them locked in his basement room,
similar to the Warrens' artefact room where they keep the Annabelle doll and many cursed
and haunted objects from their investigations. And his answer to Lorraine's suggestion that he
should burn all of it... "I've thought of it.
But I felt it was safer to keep them locked. I like taking guns off the streets."
...is similar to what Ed said in The Conjuring when we were first
introduced to the Warrens' Artefact room. "Why not just throw them in an incinerator?"
"Well, that would only destroy the vessel. Sometimes it's better to keep
the genie in the bottle. It's kind of like keeping guns off the street."
And there's another Conjuring easter egg in The Devil Made Me Do It as the Perrons,
the family from the first movie's haunted house, are name-dropped when the Warrens
receive some Get Well Soon flowers. "Look what the Perron family sent.
Oh, that was sweet of them." The demon nun Valak was the main antagonist in The
Conjuring 2 and although she didn't make a direct appearance in the The Devil Made Me Do It, after
Arne's been possessed there's a creepy little Nun figurine in his bedroom at the boarding kennels.
Also in the movie's epilogue scenes is the painting of the nun that came alive in the
second Conjuring movie and which has now been moved into the Artefact room for safekeeping.
However, notice how the painting is kept framed in the shot as Ed brings
the Occultist's cursed chalice into the room, reminding us that Valak is still the principal
villain of the franchise and lurking in the background,
just like Annabelle who is also carefully framed in shot when the camera switches angles.
By the way, there was also another little nod to The Conjuring 2, when Lorraine sees
an upside down cross while searching for the Occultist's location, referencing
the chilling scene where Janet sees all the crosses in a room slowly turn upside down.
A similar moment happens in the opening of The Nun where a crucifix slowly inverts as
Valak emerges from the depths of the abbey, and in the Conjuring Universe inverted crosses
are an demonic indicator, such as the one that appears on Frenchie's neck in the Nun
and which the Warrens talk about during their presentation about possession.
"And like that, an upside-down cross started to appear from within his body."
Valak, of course, got her own evil backstory in The Nun movie, and a connection with The
Conjuring 3 that you might not have noticed is that one of the Occultist's victims, Jessica,
is played by actress Ingrid Bisu, who also starred as Sister Oana in the demon nun's origin story.
The fact these two characters are played by the same actor could throw up some
interesting theories about the Conjuring Universe, especially given that spoiler alert for the Nun,
Sister Oana was already dead in that movie. Just before Arne murders Bruno,
take a closer look at the two posters on the wall behind his landlord.
First of all, there's Black Sabbath's iconic album cover featuring a mysterious – even maybe
witch-like – woman, a reference to the Occultist who is manipulating Arne in this very moment;
and then there's Ella Fitzgerald's Mack The Knife, the famous song about a legendary criminal,
which foreshadows how Arne is about to pick up a knife and become a notorious killer.
There are a number of books you can see behind Ed and Lorraine in the office of
Arne's defence attorney, but one of particular relevance is "Jonathan
Strange & Mr Norrell" by Susanna Clarke, because the novel is set in an alternate history
of 19th-century England, much like how the third Conjuring movie puts its own fictionalised spin
on real-life events, giving us an alternate history of the Trial of Arne Johnson.
In The Conjuring 3, director Michael Chaves wanted to pay homage to several iconic horror movies.
So at the beginning of the film when Father Gordon arrives in a cab at the Glatzel family home,
with a hat, coat and briefcase, the mist and black silhouette figure that
he forms is a homage to the scene where Father Merrin arrives in The Exorcist.
Other references to the iconic film include how
David wears speckled blue pyjamas during the exorcism like Regan.
And how Arne sacrifices himself for David by inviting the demon into his body,
similar to Father Karras in the The Exorcist, although the outcome, of course, is different.
Chaves also says that the figure of Arne appearing in a window as Father Gordon
arrives is a deliberate reference to Janet Leigh "seeing Mother in the window" when she first
arrives at the Bates Motel in Psycho. And the shot of David being showered with
blood inside the bathtub may also be a nod to the iconic shower scene in that same film.
The waterbed scene in The Devil Made Me Do It is also another deliberate tribute by the director to
one of the first horror movies he ever saw, "A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master".
So when David senses a face appearing to him from inside the mattress,
it's similar to how Joey in Elm Street 4 sees a model appear to him inside the bed.
And the hand bursting out of the mattress to grab David is a nod to how Freddy Krueger
jumps out of the waterbed to attack Joey. When Ed is possessed by the Occultist while
he's searching for Lorraine in the tunnels, the shots of him holding a hammer and dragging
his injured leg along are a little hat-tip to the showdown at the end of The Shining where
Jack Torrance limps along with an axe, and is, like Ed, being influenced by an evil entity.
There's an Annabelle easter egg via the name of the Palmeri Funeral Home which Ed
and Lorraine visit to try and make a connection with the Occultist through Jessica's dead body.
Palmeri was the name of the Pasadena apartment complex that Mia and
John moved to in the first Annabelle. "You're the new tenants at the Palmeri."
It's also the surname of Mary Ellen's crush in Annabelle Comes Home, Bob Palmeri.
"Bob's-Got-Balls. How you doing?"
There's also a visual shout out to Annabelle Comes Home via the creepy
colour wheel that has been added to the Warrens' artefact room.
The wheel terrorised Judy Warren in that movie when it manifested the many forms Annabelle has
taken in the Conjuring franchise. "I like your dolls."
Although I prefer previous Conjuring villains like Valak and Bathsheba,
the Occultist has some interesting paranormal powers such as the ability to manipulate her
victims from afar and create optical illusions to trick them into acts they wouldn't do.
She made Arne Johnson think his landlord was some kind of hellish creature attacking him,
and also made Ed Warren momentarily think Lorraine was an evil monster.
The Occultist had a copy of Lorraine appear in front of her, mirroring her movements exactly.
This trippy moment was foreshadowed at the beginning of the movie during
David's exorcism when the camera that Drew was filming with was knocked over.
As the camera continued to film, it was pointed towards a TV that was screening
the live recording, causing an image of the screen to replicate itself endlessly.
This was a neat visual piece of foreshadowing that was originally going to lead in to an even more
trippy sequence than we got in the final movie. In the trailers for the movie, you can see a
deleted scene where Lorraine sees many copies of herself, replicating endlessly
in a spiral of sorts into the distance. And if you want to learn more about that
and all the other deleted scenes including a cut post-credits scene, I'll be talking
about all that in my next Conjuring video. I'll add a link for you to watch it here and in
the video description as soon as it's ready. So what did you think of the The
Devil Made Me Do It? And how does it compare to your
other favourite movies in this franchise? Let me know in the comments below.
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