The Conjuring: First Communion — Because Apparently We’re Still Doing This

I get it. The Conjuring franchise is one of modern horror's cornerstones. The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2 wear that badge of honor for a reason — but the rest? Not so much. After those early highs, the quality of the franchise gradually dropped. They are running on fumes, and it's painfully obvious. Well, obvious to us — not to them, it seems.

Apparently, we're getting another addition to the series. That raises the question: is it really necessary? That's what we'll try to find out in this week's article.

 Source: Yahoo Entertainment / Yahoo (article published Sept. 30, 2025).

Revisiting the good hauntings of The Conjuring Universe

I remember watching The Conjuring (2013) for the first time. I was at the edge of my seat the whole time, and it stayed with me for a long time. I think this movie was the spark which later grew into the fire that is my love for horror movies today. I imagine I'm not the only one who feels this way about the movie — but why could that be?

We're introduced to a seemingly normal family, much like yours or mine and we bond with them. The fact that we know the story is based on true events deepens the audience's feeling of anxiety. If this could happen to the family on the screen, could it also happen to my family? Movies like this captivate us in a different way. For almost two hours we're left with this weird feeling — like something's creeping from the depths of our minds. James Wan, the director of the movie, managed to capture all this perfectly. He knew exactly when to linger on dark corners, when to introduce a jump scare, how to play with nuances in sound, and how to make the movie feel relatable. His love for the genre definitely carried on to The Conjuring 2.

One could say the plot of the second movie is a bit repetitive, and they'd be absolutely right. We're introduced to a new family, this time in England. They are troubled by an invisible entity and the Warrens show up to save the day — and the soul of the possessed child. At this point we don't really mind the repetition because the dread is still very much present in the movie. Once again James Wan left us with horror-ridden thoughts and even worse nightmares in the form of Valak, the demon nun.

I know many people end their list of the good hauntings of the franchise here, but there's one honorary mention I'd like to add. Annabelle didn't do well on Rotten Tomatoes, getting 28% on the Tomatometer, and 35% on the Popcornmeter. Yet somehow, it stayed with me through all these years. When it comes to movies about hauntings, we're used to the director playing with the lighting and the volume — things that affect the mental state of the audience on a deeper level. Annabelle definitely included those elements, but it leaned a bit more toward jump scares. Somehow it still worked because they were well placed. Sure, the cultist subplot was unnecessary, especially since later on we got an actual backstory for Annabelle. Yet, I'm willing to look past it because I still get my daily fix of being scared after rewatching it. A haunted doll with a deep and twisted history? Sign me up! (To watching it, not having it, of course.)

While Annabelle certainly had its redeeming qualities, we can't ignore the issues. Favoring jump scares over atmospheric horror was definitely one of them. Many of the other movies within the universe had similar issues and while that change of tone didn't kill the franchise overnight, it definitely kept on chipping at the quality. It's like poison damage in video games. Once you're affected, it keeps on lowering your health until you get rid of it, or die.

After looking back at all the best parts, I'm left with one question: What happened to the series which had such a strong start?

How To Ruin Your Franchise ™

After the initial success, it seemed like the team behind the first three movies started stumbling around. Annabelle's sub-universe seemed to be doing just fine, based on the Rotten Tomatoes scores they hold. The Nun movies, on the other hand, failed to resonate with the critics. Their ratings were terrible. I assume the reason for that might be the subplot of Sister Irene being related to St. Lucy and somehow being able to control wine. Honestly, they could've dealt with that situation differently. The whole wine scene seemed a bit over-the-top.

We should also mention The Curse of La Llorona here, even though fans can't seem to agree if it's a part of The Conjuring universe or not. The movie's only tie to the series is Father Perez who had a short cameo and alluded to Annabelle exactly one time. The story didn't hold much water. The actual curse of the Weeping Woman is mysterious and fear-inducing, but her depiction in the movie is lacking. What it delivered with the atmospheric horror, it ruins with a badly put together story. Why is the Weeping Woman depicted as a bride? And what do you mean you can now stab incorporeal entities with objects? There's way too many plot holes in the story for my liking.

But our list of misses within the Universe doesn't end here! There are two more movies we need to mention, those being The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It and The Conjuring: Last Rites. I'm going to make this short and simple. The movies were absolutely boring, it felt like the plot wasn't moving anywhere. I couldn't see any of the initial passion for the genre in them anymore. And then it dawned on me: they were cash grabs. Unfortunately, The Conjuring turned into its own brand, still living off the success of the first couple of movies. It's a Fast and Furious type of situation, the first few were good but they should've left it at that.

When a series starts to distance itself from their main plot idea, it oftentimes fails. The focus gradually shifted from other families to the Warrens. Somehow every haunting had something personal to do with Lorraine. Either she had a premonition or she was personally and deeply connected to the entity. If done gracefully, shifts like these can add to the story but that's not the case here. We can see that in the last addition to the Universe, Last Rites. The Warrens became the absolute focus of the movie, the storyline wasn't that strong and the entities looked horrendous, and not in a good way. The whole story just flopped.

The Conjuring: First Communion

After carefully examining the history of the series, I think it's safe to say that we don't need another addition to the family. If anything, we need fewer movies. When the first few movies came out, I felt excited to watch them. Now? Not so much. After the announcement of First Communion, I felt annoyed. They turned a well-loved franchise into a hated one, for what? Well, money. Probably.

We don't know what the plot is yet, but we know it's going to be a prequel to the Warrens story. My guess is, it's going to be about Ed and Lorraine meeting and possibly their first exorcism together. They did touch on the subject in Last Rites, so it would be a logical assumption.

They could turn their luck around if only they reintroduced some of the initial love and passion for the horror genre. We know the Warrens have a whole room full of cursed and haunted artifacts, but somehow this far they mostly focused on their life story. That's like sitting on a gold mine and not doing anything about it.

At this point hoping for a good prequel seems scarier than most of their movies.

Image credit: Medium | Pixabay