Take, for example, Tony Amendola’s Father Perez from 2014’s Annabelle. Often Rome and her priests embody the countering power (and authority structure) waging war against the forces of evil. Crucifixes and Holy Water form the toolkits used by the Warrens and their associates.
The films tell us that Ed Warren is the only non-priest authorized by Rome to perform exorcisms. To be precise, and to demonstrate the point, the film is built on the Warrens as agents of good, working under the authority of God, legitimized by their association with the Roman Catholic Church.
The series is built around the real-world (defined as loosely as your worldview prefers) exploits of Ed and Lorraine Warren as paranormal investigators and problem-solvers. The second most prominent ideological marker is, perhaps surprisingly, Catholicism. The primary ideological feature of the Conjuring shared universe is clearly the chills brought on by the existence of various bogeys going bump within its night.
The record here is far from spotless (looking at you Annabelle and The Nun), but nonetheless, the Conjuring is the third most important shared universe in our current Hollywood. Who is left? That’s right – The Conjuring. The DCEU has gained momentum lately, but is still dealing with the fallout from early stumbles. The same is true for the world of Transfomers ( Bumblebee here being the equivalent of Hobbs and Shaw for the franchise). After that? The Fast & the Furious is just now cracking the egg of moving beyond mere franchise status (with the forthcoming Hobbs and Shaw film). This is no small issue, considering that while shared universes as a concept remain buzzy in Hollywood, their actual realization is still small, and the Conjuring universe is the third most prominent shared universe franchise running. This newest component changes the scenery significantly. Regardless, the die was cast and now La Llorona must be evaluated not only as a standalone horror genre piece but as a component of the broader Conjuring landscape. It is not entirely clear if La Llorona was always intended to be a Conjuring-universe film or if the connection was implanted at a later date as something like an Easter Egg. Your neighbor’s Coexist bumper sticker and Santa Muerte are cousins, if not siblings, and now, thanks to The Curse of La Llorona, the family has a home in the world of The Conjuring. Santa Muerte, a grim chimera born of Roman Catholic veneration of saints intermixed with pagan superstition, represents an older tradition which nonetheless parallels the advanced modernist project of religious pluralism. The worship of Santa Muerte is condemned by the Catholic Church in Mexico as invalid, but it is firmly entrenched in Mexican culture.” A personification of death, associated with healing, protection and safe delivery to the afterlife by her devotees. “The Santa Muerte is a female folk saint venerated in Mexico. For those unfamiliar with this figure the words of Lujan Agusti, taken from a compelling photo essay published in The Washington Post, are concise:
Santa Muerte, Holy Death, is the product of a syncretistic melding of Catholic theology and Mexican folk religion. Quite obviously, The Curse of La Llorona is a story rooted in Mexican folklore, dating back to the 19 th century, about a mother who does the unspeakable, killing her own children in a fit of jealous rage.Ĭonsidered as a piece within the Conjuring universe, however, the film functions much more like a different artifact of Mexican folklore – the ghastly Santa Muerte. Syncretism has come to the Conjuring universe.