The Conjuring Movies' Most Disturbing Moments That Had Us Totally Spooked

It sure is a good thing that Ed and Lorraine Warren love each other so much. Because apart from the warmth and care shared by the demon-hunting dynamic duo (portrayed by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), "The Conjuring" films are a relentlessly spooky experience. From restless spirits to hellish creatures, "The Conjuring" series is rife with opportunities to thank your lucky stars you wore your brown pants to the theater. After all, these moments are why audiences flock to these films in the first place. Who doesn't love a good heart-pumping jolt or unshakable sense of unease? 

The continuously expanding Conjuring Universe is full of spooky, scary, and otherwise disturbing moments (looking at you, tea party scene in "Annabelle: Creation"). But in the interest of keeping things focused and narrowing down what characterizes a good scare in the core trilogy of the franchise, we're just going to be looking at the scariest moments from the three mainline films in the series: 2013's "The Conjuring," 2016's "The Conjuring 2," and 2021's "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It."

From expertly crafted and well-earned jump scares to atmospheric chills and creature reveals so terrifying they spawned their own spin-offs, we've combed through the core "Conjuring" films to deliver the demonic goods. Hope you've all got your Bibles handy.

Parents, we are begging you: Stop letting your children play such creepy games. When the Perron family first moves into their supremely spooky new home, the younger girls initiate a game of hide-and-clap, a needlessly tense variation on hide-and-go-seek. The idea is that the blindfolded seeker is allowed to ask those hiding to clap three times to pinpoint their location. The moment this game appears on-screen, it's clear that "The Conjuring" has some other, nefarious motive. Sure enough, later in the film, little April (Kyla Deaver) asks her mom, Carolyn (Lili Taylor), to play a game of hide-and-clap with her. When Carolyn can't find April, our minds immediately assume the worst.

Once it becomes clear that something isn't right, Carolyn takes off her blindfold and ventures downstairs. Her increasingly panicked cries are answered by a horror fan's worst fear: the basement door opening, all on its own. The out-of-tune piano drones a couple of notes, and Carolyn approaches. After finding herself pushed down the stairs and locked in the basement, ghostly shenanigans and exploding lightbulbs force her back up to the top of the stairs. Now bathed in black, Carolyn fumbles with a box of matches. With our attention masterfully misdirected toward the bottom of the stairs, it's spooky and surprising when a pair of ghostly arms shoot out from behind Carolyn's shoulder, clapping and extinguishing her match. Lesser horror directors take note: This is how you earn a jump scare.

While the vast majority of these spine-tingling moments take place in the dark, it is a truth universally acknowledged by all open-minded horror fans that the scares that take place in broad daylight deserve their day in the sun too ... pun intended. After all, if supernatural happenings take place out in the open, there's nowhere to hide.

This moment begins after Ed and Lorraine share an adorable embrace out in the yard: They've had a glimpse of rural domestic bliss, and for a brief moment, they flirt with the idea of how nice it would be to settle down in the country. But the ghosts are having none of that. As the clouds begin to gather and the laundry starts to whip and flutter on the line, one sheet breaks loose. To our horror, it catches onto something ... a human-shaped something. It's a brief moment, but it lasts long enough for our eyes to register the ghostly presence. What comes next is unnerving in its own right, as the sheet flies up to the window where Carolyn Perron is in the process of being possessed. But it's the unexpected ghost reveal that sticks with us at the end of the (laundry) day.

"The Conjuring" trilogy is filled with spooky moments that take place in the dark: in pitch-black corners, dusty basements, and too-long hallways. But one of the most alarming and unnerving scares across the three films takes place in broad daylight. In the scene, Janet Hodgson (Madison Wolfe) is home alone, attempting to relax when the TV starts acting up, and the remote somehow keeps getting misplaced. It becomes clear to viewers that the spirit is up to no good. After retrieving the remote, Janet settles back down only for a well-timed lighting strike to disrupt the signal.  

After fiddling with the bunny ears, Janet crouches on the ground where she (and the audience) is startled to see the blurry reflection of an old man on the TV screen. "What a good scare," we think to ourselves, proud of our steely nerves. But neither this grumpy old spirit nor director James Wan are through with us yet. After a moment filled with a false sense of security, a screaming, yellow-eyed visage of Bill Wilkins (Bob Adrian) appears behind Janet's shoulder, terrifying the young girl. The fact that Wan was able to tease so much terror out of what is basically an argument over what channel to watch is a testament to his skill as a director. While many jump scares feel cheap and surprising rather than scary, the "my house!" scare in "The Conjuring 2" is a well-earned spook that gets us every time.

The gift that keeps on giving. After terrifying Lorraine in the hallway, the demon nun, also known as Valak, continues her reign of terror in Ed's study. It's hard to isolate the scariest part of Lorraine's encounter with Valak. There's something to be said for the subtle stomach churn of Ed's painting — which eerily premeditated the demon nun's likeness — looming in the shadows over Lorraine's shoulder. The slow, push-zoom toward the portrait in the dark is also a candidate, with the painted eyes blazing on the canvas. But it's Valak's ultimate introduction that takes the cake.

A shadow slowly creeps along the wood-paneled wall, heading toward Ed's painting. Once there, Valak's pale fingers snake around the edge of the hanging painting. The spirit chooses the form of a nun to desecrate religious symbols and to mock the faithful, which feels pointed toward Lorraine. Powerful, personal, and perverse, Valak's introduction is an expertly crafted set piece that doubles as a character introduction for one of the most iconic villains in the extended "Conjuring" universe.

While the nursery rhyme that the Hodgson kids' zoetrope focuses on in "The Conjuring 2" might seem too creepy to be true, it turns out that it is a real poem. The nursery rhyme was first put to paper in the 19th century, although the original author of "There Was a Crooked Man" is unknown. But, we have to assume that whoever wrote it must have had some deep-seated hatred for children because it's about a pretty terrifying image.

Seeing an opportunity to cause mental anguish, Valak assumes the form of the rhyme's titular crooked gentleman (portrayed by Javier Botet) to give Ed Warren a spook. Blinded by a rogue spray of steam (thanks, Valak), a half-blind Ed takes his search for Janet to the pillow fort at the end of the hallway. There, leaning over the zoetrope, Ed makes the pants-soiling decision to look up, where he's met with the Crooked Man's toothy grin. What comes next is absolutely unpleasant — limbs just shouldn't be that long, you know? — but the predatory grimace is the crown jewel of the sequence ... and the image that we assume kicked off talks about the Crooked Man getting his own sequel.

The entire sequence depicting Arne's (Ruairi O'Connor) perspective of his possession is one of the highlights of "The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It." After coming home early from work after the whole "being cursed by a witch" thing making it hard to wield a chainsaw, Arne's landlord, Bruno (Ronnie Gene Blevins), talks him into fixing the music system so they can party. While Arne's girlfriend is actually trying to squirm away from handsy Bruno, Arne sees something much more sinister. Sweating and stumbling, Arne begins to spiral while Blondie's "Call Me" pounds in his eardrums. We'll call this a not-so-subtle jab that maybe he shouldn't have invited the demon in during David's possession.

Arne sees Bruno transform into a hideous, sharp-toothed demon, appropriately causing him to flee the living room and fall to the floor amidst the dog kennels. Wide-eyed and terrified, he stares down the hallway as his vision plunges into darkness. After slowing to a demonic crawl, Blondie cuts out from the speakers. And then, from Arne's perspective on the floor, we see a glowing-eyed version of Bruno crawl like a bat out of hell straight toward us. It's one of those shots that spurs something primal in the audience, like a gut reaction urging you to get back and put your hands up in self-defense. Benefiting from a great build-up, Bruno's scrambling crawl is easily one of the greatest scares in the series.

Depending on who you ask, the scariest part of "The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It" actually takes place after the story ends. "The Conjuring 2" featured excerpts of audio of the real-life Ed Warren speaking to the supposedly possessed Janet Hodgson. The third film in the trilogy follows suit with audio from one of the three exorcisms performed on David Glatzel. While the credits roll, accompanied by newspaper clippings and photographs from the real case surrounding Arne Johnson's alleged possession, we hear clips from David's exorcism. While not nearly as gymnastically over-the-top as the exorcism's dramatization at the beginning of the film, the audio is arguably more chilling than its fictional counterpart. The voice we hear is not something you could imagine coming out of the body of an 11-year-old boy. The voice is deep, guttural, wheezing, and giggling.

While "The Conjuring" never apologizes for playing fast and loose with its source material, its tether to reality is an integral part of the trilogy's appeal. And by the time you get to the end of these films, you could use a reminder that an element of these stories did actually happen to real people. It's a genuinely terrifying thought to leave the audience with, that hauntings such as these are possible, whether within the human imagination or a more spiritual plane.