Inside the History Behind the Horror Movie

It all started with a farmhouse in Rhode Island.

Demonologists and paranormal researchers Ed and Lorraine Warren — who also investigated the allegedly possessed Annabelle doll and the home from The Amityville Horror — were asked by Carolyn Perron to come help her family, which she said was besieged by spirits in their home.

The real events that followed became the basis of The Conjuring and inspired an entire cinematic universe. The Nun, the 2018 movie starring Taissa Farmiga and Bonnie Aarons, is a prequel to The Conjuring 2, and it’s the first of the Conjuring-universe movies to not feature Ed and Lorraine (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga).

Set in Romania in 1952, the film centers on Father Burke (Demián Bichir) and Sister Irene (Taissa), who have been sent to a convent to investigate the deaths of two nuns, aided by a local man nicknamed “Frenchie.”

One of the nuns was allegedly killed by a demon appearing as a nun, and the other died by suicide to avoid being possessed by the evil force. That nefarious entity is Valak, the same demon that appeared to Ed and Lorraine in The Conjuring 2, which takes place in 1977.

The hit movie was loosely inspired by a couple of the Warrens’ documented experiences with the paranormal. Here’s the real history behind The Nun, involving noted paranormal researchers Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Who are Ed and Lorraine Warren?

Among the most famous of all paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine investigated the real-life cases of alleged hauntings and possessions that inspired The Conjuring, The Amityville Horror and Annabelle, among other films and books based on their case files.

Ed was a so-called demonologist who studied hauntings and possessions, and Lorraine claimed to be a clairvoyant who used her visions to aid their investigations. Ed died in 2006, and Lorraine died in 2019.

“Our job is to go in, evaluate what’s going on, document it, and then turn it over to church authorities,” Lorraine told the Springfield Union-News in 1995.

When work began on The Conjuring, Lorraine coached the cast on how to handle sensitive paranormal experiences.

“One of the first things Lorraine said to me is that, from her perspective and her knowledge of the diabolical, all of that negative stuff feeds on fear. That is probably something I’ve learned to push away year after year,” Vera told PEOPLE in 2021. “And that’s really, honestly, the trick — how does one do that? I don’t necessarily have a recipe for that, other than knowing the knowledge of that.”

Wilson also shared a piece of Lorraine’s advice on being in allegedly haunted locations.

“One thing Lorraine did say to me, when I was talking about a supernatural occurrence — long story, but — about these kids and hearing kids’ voices, she just very nonchalantly said, ‘It’s probably a child’s spirit who just wants to play,’ ” he told PEOPLE. “It was so off the cuff, and it actually did resonate with me: if there is something otherworldly or supernatural or unexplained, it doesn’t necessarily have to be bad.”

Is The Nun based on a true story?

Valak first appears in The Conjuring 2, when the Warrens are in England, investigating the Enfield poltergeist — the case of a young girl allegedly experiencing a supernatural force taking over her body. In that movie, Lorraine sees visions of a demon dressed as a nun, which can block her clairvoyance. They don’t know it at the time, but that demon is Valak.

In real life, Ed and Lorraine investigated the Enfield poltergeist at the center of the storyline in The Conjuring 2, but their involvement in the investigation of that case was inflated for the plot of the movie. In reality, there’s nothing to suggest that the events of the Enfield case were connected to Valak, whose depiction in The Nun is heavily fictionalized from historical depictions.

However, there are two elements to The Nun that do have ties to real occurrences in the Warrens’ work. In the 1970s, Ed and Lorraine investigated the Borley Rectory, a notoriously haunted place in England that had been a religious residence for centuries. When they visited, Lorraine allegedly said, “I feel the presence of a nun in this church.”

One of the spirits rumored to haunt the place was the ghost of a nun who was buried alive for having an affair with a priest. They also captured a photograph that they believed depicted a spectral nun praying in the rectory’s church.

While talking to Esquire in 2018, the Warrens’ son-in-law, Tony Spera, speculated that that case could have inspired The Nun. “Is The Nun based on that experience?” Spera said. “I think Hollywood takes bits and pieces of different stories and puts them together … They couldn’t just come up with [The Nun] out of the blue.”

The other element that could be inspired by real-life experiences is the character of Maurice Theriault.

Who is Maurice Theriault in The Nun?

The character “Frenchie” in The Nun starts out as a good guy trying to help Father Burke and Sister Irene, but he’s eventually possessed by Valak who uses him to commit murders in The Nun II. He’s based on a Massachusetts man named Maurice “Frenchie” Theriault, who was a real person allegedly possessed by a demon whom Ed and Lorraine attempted to help.

“Maurice Theriault would bleed from his eyes. During the exorcism his head split open and we have that on film,” Ed told the Springfield Union-News in 1995. “Boil eruptions appeared on his skin, and crosses appeared all over his body.”

Theriault killed his wife and died by suicide in 1992, and his claims of possession have been heavily scrutinized, including by his sister, who believed he was putting on the symptoms.

“If it was mental illness or a fake, why did tables rise off the floor?,” Ed said in the same interview. “We put him in a hospital for six weeks and the doctors couldn’t explain it.”

Is Valak a real demon?

According to historical fables, yes. Valak appears in The Lesser Key of Solomon, a collection of centuries-old writings about demons, although he’s depicted as a winged child sitting on a two-headed dragon creature. He is sometimes described as the “grand president of hell,” but there is no association in historic texts of Valak appearing as a nun.

In a 2022 Instagram post, The Conjuring 2 director and The Nun producer James Wan explained the creative choice to portray Valak as a demonic nun, rather than in a form more faithful to his mythological depictions.

“The original VALAK in The Conjuring 2 was going to be this winged demon. A beautifully/hideously sculpted animatronic puppet head and practical body-suit,” he explained.

“As cool as it was, it felt out of place within the Conjuring world we had built,” he continued. “And so during post production, I reconceived the villain — feeling it needed to be something more grounded, more personal, and creepier. And thus the demonic Nun was born.”

Is Valak banished at the end of The Nun?

Short answer: no. Neither Father Burke or Sister Irene realize it at the end of the movie, but Valak evades banishment by possessing Frenchie.

Valak returns for another showdown with Sister Irene in The Nun 2, set in 1956 France, where a series of murders are being attributed to a demonic entity.

Is The Nun connected to The Conjuring?

Valak first appears in the Conjuring universe in 2016’s The Conjuring 2, when the Warrens encounter a demon in the form of a nun. Lorraine suggests that the demon appears in a religious form to test her faith. But really, the appearance of the demonic nun is a foreshadowing of The Nun, which would be released two years later.

Other than Valak appearing in both The Conjuring 2 and The Nun, there’s no apparent link between the two movies — but in The Nun’s sequel, a plot point emerges that ties the movies together. At the end of The Nun II, a post-credits scene reveals that Sister Irene and Lorraine are both descended from St. Lucy, patron saint of the blind, and their second sight is an inherited trait.

The connections between The Nun and The Conjuring cross over into real life, too. Vera, who plays Lorraine, and Taissa, who plays Sister Irene, are actually sisters.