Diksha Sundriyal
‘The Conjuring’ movies have given us some great horror villains over the course of its run, but none has been as terrifying or impactful as the evil nun, aka Valak. The entity first appeared in ‘The Conjuring 2’, and it became clear that it would eventually come back to haunt the Warren family. However, it also raised several questions. Who is this entity, and where did it come from? For this, a prequel, ‘The Nun,’ was made, and not only does it answer the questions about Valak’s origins, but it also cleverly connects the whole thing with the original films. The scene at the end of the movie confirms that. SPOILERS AHEAD
Frenchie’s Fate is Sealed Because of the Mark
It could have been any man from the Romanian village who went to the abbey to make deliveries, but the writers of ‘The Nun’ made the clever choice of using a character that would be fresh to the audience but would also serve a great connection to ‘The Conjuring’ universe. Considering the timeline of the movies and ‘The Nun’ taking place in the 50s, things lined up for Frenchie to be used as the character in the movie. It was an interesting Easter egg for those who could figure it out before the final twist was revealed because, for those paying attention, this isn’t the first time that Frenchie has appeared in ‘The Conjuring’ universe.
In ‘The Conjuring,’ a desperate Carolyn Perron attends a lecture by Ed and Lorraine Warren to find a solution to the problems at her new house. In the lecture, the Warrens talk about the case of an exorcism that took every bit of their strength to finish and survive. It also serves as the starting point for a thread about Ed’s impending death that runs through the next couple of movies in the series. This thread also connects ‘The Conjuring’ to its prequel, ‘The Nun,’ with Frenchie as the critical plot device that glues everything together. However, this also confirms that while he may have survived the events of ‘The Nun,’ the evil will never completely leave him until it has devoured him whole.
The Inverted Cross Confirms Valak Isn’t Dead Yet
Sister Irene, Father Burke, and their hesitant companion, Frenchie, must exert considerable effort to defeat Valak and send it back to hell. They leave the abbey, convinced they have gotten rid of the evil, but the audience knows that the evil will return. Instead of leaving us in the lurch, the movie gives us a definitive answer, and it all comes together via Frenchie, aka Maurice Theriault.
During the fight in the catacombs of the abbey, there comes a point where the Nun takes hold of Frenchie when he saves Irene by casting the demon out of her body using the Blood of Christ. She is thrown off before Irene can try to help him, and it looks like Frenchie has reached its end. Later, when Irene successfully uses the blood to seal off the gate through which the demon came, she almost drowns. Frenchie shows up just in time to save her, and she is pleasantly surprised to see him alive. But she remains completely unaware of why he was left to live.
From the beginning, Irene and Burke knew that evil needed a human body to stay alive. It was to keep herself from being possessed by the evil that Sister Victoria threw herself off the window with a rope around her neck at the beginning of the movie. They knew they needed to defeat the evil before it could claim someone else. Irene seemed like the obvious target for the Nun, but it also kept its backup ready. When cast out of Irene, it used Frenchie to keep itself alive by leaving a part of itself within his body. The inverted cross was the mark it left behind, branding Frenchie as its vessel, which it would use in time to become powerful and come back to haunt the world. The importance of the mark reverberates years later when the Warrens help exorcise Frenchie as the inverted cross appears all over his body, confirming that Valak has been in possession of him all along.
Read More: The Nun: Movies Like The 2018 Horror Film
