With over $700 million made at the international box-office, Corin Hardy's The Nun became the highest-grossing entry in The Conjuring Universe upon its release in September 2018. Filmed entirely in Romania, The Nun takes place in 1952 and follows the horrific exploits of Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga), a young novitiate summoned to the Vatican by Father Burke (Demian Bechir) to investigate a mysterious suicide in an increasingly haunted Abbey.
In keeping with the trend of the entire Conjuring Universe, The Nun is littered with all sorts of hidden details, hard-to-miss Easter eggs, subliminal clues, and buried messages. With a sequel tentatively dated for 2021, it's time to dig below the surface of The Nun.
Tomb Room Death Masks
The Nun features a memorable scene in which several main characters amble through a haunted crypt inside the Abbey. On the walls and atop each grave in the Tomb Room lies a Death Mask, each one of which is physically molded after the facial likeness of several crew members.
In specific, the faces of director Corin Hardy, screenwriter Gary Dauberman, executive-producer Michael Clear, and cinematographer Maxime Alexandre were all replicated with plaster molds. The molds were then used as props in the scene.
Sinners In Stairs
To create the giant stone stairways in the film, Hardy and his production team hired real-life Romanian sculptors. Hardy not only spilled the blood on the stairs himself, but he allowed the sculptors to carve hidden words in the stairs as well.
During the scene in which blood is dumped over the stairs, close attention will find with word Sinners engraved in the stone. The blood is poured directly over the engraving, suggesting that the blood of sinners will be shed as the film unspools.
Valak In The Classroom
One of the running visual motifs in The Conjuring universe includes the word Valak, the name of the demonic entity in the series, hidden in plain sight. The Nun continues the tradition in a number of different scenes.
Before she is summoned to Rome, Sister Irene is seen teaching a class of young children. The word Valak appears twice in the scene, both in vertical-reverse order. The chalkboard in the background spells the word Valak, but there's also a V-shaped chair that is positioned right before the letters Alak on the righthand side of the frame.
Valak Seesaw & License Plate
The word Valak is subliminally spelled out in two more instances in The Nun. At the school where Sister Irene teaches at, the contours of the seesaw/jungle gym in the playground spell out the word Valak.
During the scene in which Father Burke is seen loading material onto a Romanian pick-up truck, a quick shot of the license plate reveals the sequence VA01LAK. Remove the 01 in the middle of the plate number and the word Valak is left bare. Also, in the Abbey, the word Valak can be found spelled out in the upsidedown pentagram.
Nun Photo In Abbey
The Nun made one of her first appearances in The Conjuring Universe during Annabelle: Creation. The demonic figure appears in the corner of a photo depicting Sisters Maria, Ana, Lucia, and Charlotte. While the first three sisters do not appear in The Nun, the same photo from both films does.
The photo from Annabelle: Creation can be briefly spotted on the wall inside the Abbey when the characters first arrive at the Abbey. This hidden detail also proves that Charlotte visited the Abbey before events in The Nun transpired.
Valak The Snake
One of the things that makes Valak the demon so frightening is its ability to change forms. Upon researching the demon, Father Burke reads a volume in which Valak is depicted with a giant snaking emanating from its mouth and a descriptor claiming Valak to be "the marquis of snakes."
A slew of other clues to Valak's serpentine nature is alluded to in the film. For instance, the evil mother reverend's (Valak) throne is adorned with two snakes devouring each other. Later, snakes pour out of Daniel's mouth when Father Burke chases his ghost through the grave. In the final battle, Burke is swaddled by a snake and bitten in the eye.
Corridor Of Crosses
According to director Corin Hardy, the corridor of crosses set-piece was genuinely haunted. For the scene in which Sister Irene goes through the gauntlet of corridor crucifixes, the sound of bells can be heard. In reality, such "Saftey Bells" were used at the time in Eastern Europe as a way to allay fears of being buried alive.
Additionally, close attention to the soundtrack during the scene may pick up what sounds like the words The Nun repeated over and over in a slowed-down tempo.
Crooked Man Cameo
The next bona fide Conjuring villain to get its own spin-off film is The Crooked Man, which scared audiences in The Conjuring 2. The slapstick demon is another form Valak likes to assume and one that happens to make a cameo appearance in The Nun.
The Crooked Man appearance comes after Frenchie learns a family is grieving over the death of their 12-year-old child. When the camera cuts to show the bereaving family, a man looking downward with the exact same hat worn by The Crooked Man can be spotted, suggesting at future things to come for the horror villain.
Maurice's Exorcism
In the epilogue of The Nun, the character of Frenchie is revealed to in fact be Maurice, the French-Candian farmer that appeared in the exorcism footage Ed and Lorraine Warren showed to their class in the original Conjuring film.
To make the connection clearer, the actor from the original scene (Christof Veillon) was replaced by the actor playing Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) in The Nun. Dialogue spoken by Ed Warren emphasizes the link when he says "they called him Frenchie."
Sister Irene And Lorraine Warren Related
Much debate has persisted regarding the potential relation between Lorraine Warren and Sister Irene, played by real-life sisters Vera and Taissa Farmiga. Very close attention to a specific detail in The Nun provides a definitive answer.
While both Lorraine and Irene have the ability to see the future and have ties to Valak, the real connection between the two can be spotted on Irene's passport. Irene is born in 1930, three years after Lorraine's birth in 1927. While Irene's maiden name is Moran, her birthplace of Bridgeport, Connecticut is the same place where Lorraine was born. Ed and Lorraine Warren's home is also in nearby Monroe, Connecticut.