'The Conjuring 2': How the Crooked Man Could Be the Next Annabelle
Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in ‘The Conjurying 2’ (Warner Bros.)
Warning: This story contains spoilers for the ending of The Conjuring 2.
The Enfield Poltergeist may be the central boogeyman of the summer’s big horror hit The Conjuring 2, which topped the box-office charts this weekend, but the creature you should really keep an eye on is the Crooked Man. Director James Wan based the movie on a real-life haunting from the late ’70s, when a British family, the Hodgsons, claimed to be sharing their home with a pesky ghost, necessitating the intervention of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). In the film, the poltergeist causes all manner of mischief, from turning crucifixes upside down to corporeal possession. It’s most fiendish trick, though, is bringing the main character of a famous English nursery rhyme to horrifying life… and setting up a potential spin-off in the process.
On the page at least, the Crooked Man doesn’t seem to have a sinister bone in his body. Potentially spoken as early as the 17th century, but brought to widespread fame in the 1840s by noted rhyme collector James Orchard Halliwell-Phillipps, the single-stanza ditty “There Was a Crooked Man” reads thusly:
There was a crooked man, and he walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence upon a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.
Those are the words repeated by the youngest Hodgson child, Billy (Benjamin Haigh) in The Conjuring 2, as he sits in front of his toy zoetrope, which, when spun, depicts an illustrated version of the Crooked Man taking a crooked stroll. And as long as the Crooked Man stays inside that revolving circle, he brings a smile to the young boy’s face. But that smile vanishes late one night when the poltergeist possesses the neighbors’ dog, twisting the canine’s limbs and body until it resembles a frightening version of Billy’s literary hero. The Crooked Man — whose spindly appearance and jerky movements are somewhat reminiscent of the title character in Jennifer Kent’s terrific 2014 horror film, The Babadook — proceeds to scare Billy and the rest of his family silly before vanishing into thin air, another victory for the endlessly inventive poltergeist.
The Hodgson family is terrorized in ‘The Conjuring 2’ (Warner Bros.)
But the demon eventually meets its match in the form of the Warrens, who discover its true name — Valak — and subsequently banish it back to the hellish dimension from whence it spawned. And as is his wont, Ed brings a souvenir back from the field to place among his collection of supernatural knickknacks. In one of the film’s final scenes, we see that the keepsake he’s chosen is none other than Billy’s “Crooked Man” zoetrope, which he places on a shelf that’s in full view of the most famous resident in his collection: Annabelle, the grinning psycho doll that parlayed a cameo in the first Conjuring into her own film in 2014. Directed by John R. Leonetti, Annabelle was murdered by critics, but earned nearly $85 million domestically thanks in large part to the Conjuring connection. (A sequel is due out in May 2017.)
More: How the Real Annabelle Doll Became Even Freakier for the Movies
Given Annabelle’s star power, Ed’s strategic placement of Billy’s zoetrope doesn’t seem at all accidental. It’s very possible that the Crooked Man is being positioned as the next attempt to broaden The Conjuring franchise in the same way that Warner Bros. is currently building out the DC Cinematic Universe. That could mean an appearance in Annabelle 2 or a straight leap to a spin-off movie, one that wouldn’t have to star either Farmiga or Wilson, who have sat out both Annabelle-only adventures. We’ve already seen that the Warrens’ have an awfully big trophy room… big enough to construct an entire Conjuring universe out of killer dolls, crooked men, and other ghosts and ghouls.
Watch The Conjuring 2 cast discuss franchise’s long-term potential:
