Summary

The Conjuring franchise was inspired by Ed and Lorraine Warren's real-life cases as paranormal investigators.
Ed and Lorraine founded a ghost-hunting group, the oldest in New England, and investigated over 10,000 cases.
The story of Annabelle the demon doll inspired three films, though the real doll was a non-threatening Raggedy Ann.

When the spooky season comes around, some of the best and most entertaining movies to watch to get people in the mood are all part of the same horror movie universe. The Conjuring was once a scary movie about a family who thought run-of-the-mill ghosts haunted their house. They enlisted some real-life ghost hunters in Ed and Lorraine Warren, and the rest was both real-world and cinematic history.

The Conjuring ended up being such a popular horror movie that an entire franchise was born. Soon , there were movies like The Nun and Annabelle, as well as additional The Conjuring films, all of which had one thing in common: They were all supposed to involve cases investigated by the Warrens and people who were saved because of their expertise in the occult. The question still remains: how much of what people have seen on the silver screen was actually part of what the Warrens claimed as their adventures and how much was Hollywood taking some very poetic licenses? In order to really distinguish "truth" from fantasy, it is of course, important to remember that some of the stories Ed and Lorraine told about their adventures and certain items they ran across cannot be proven to be true or false. That is the nature of the supernatural world the two claimed to exist in. The "truth" of some of these stories are still a matter of interpretation.

Who are Ed and Loraine Warren?

The Conjuring Universe Ed and Lorraine Warren demonologists

Rather than going through every movie in The Conjuring universe point by point and trying to pick out what might be true and what might be false, it's likely more helpful to realize that when Ed and Lorraine Warren went into an investigation, they did so under the premise that they had seen demons, haunted items, and ghosts and that all of this stuff absolutely existed. In fact, interestingly enough, the case that really put them on the map was made into a movie but is not considered part of The Conjuring universe. The Warrens were the investigators who tried to help the Lutz family when they moved into a house in Amityville, New York and soon reported some very strange happenings going on in the house.

Ed and Lorraine began their careers in public as ghost hunters in 1952 when they founded the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR). This is still considered the oldest ghost-hunting group in the region, and it's here that they made headlines researching cases and reportedly fighting demons. Over the course of their career, the pair claimed they investigated well over 10,000 cases. While there were people who definitely called what the Warrens did, "blarney" more than a few of the people they said they helped backed up the stories of what went on.

While there were people who definitely called what the Warrens did, "blarney" more than a few of the people they said they helped backed up the stories of what went on.

Among the most famous cases, the husband and wife team investigated outside of what is now considered the Amityville Horror house, was a case surrounding the first murder ever committed where the person who did the killing didn't deny they'd done it but rather claimed he did it because a demon possessed him. The case, which The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is based on, involved the Warrens working for the defense team. And while they did claim they believed the killer, Arne Johnson, did have something possessing him, Arne was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, he ended up serving only five as he got out early for exemplary behavior.

The Warrens were the only psychic researchers invited to investigate the Amityville Horror in 1975. The Lutz family claimed that their house was haunted by a demonic presence that forced them to leave.

Ed, who died in 2006 at the age of 80, professed to be a demonologist. And claimed to be the only certified demonologist in the world who was not a member of the Catholic Church. Lorraine, who passed away in 2019 at the age of 82, claimed to have some sort of clairvoyance.

The story of Conjuring 3 and the story of the demonic doll, Annabelle are the ones they are most known for in the general, real-life public, though the original film, and the case of Bathsheba Sherman is what introduced the movie goer world to the pair.

Is Annabelle A Real Demon Doll?

While The Conjuring movies are all tied together by the involvement of the Warrens, the tale of Annabelle the demon doll was interesting enough that it got three of its own films. While some of the stories surrounding the doll are deeply embellished, the Warrens are on the record as having said that there was something wrong with the doll and that they did think a demonic spirit was attached to it.

One of the most famous changes that the Annabelle movies did make was the films made the doll look quite a bit more evil than the original, "real" Annabelle. The real doll was actually a run of the mill Raggedy Ann doll that was said to be able to move around on its own. However, film makers decided that in the movies, it needed to look creepier.

Rating block community and brand ratings Image