James Wan’s The Conjuring series has persisted as something of a contradiction. Its immense size — 10 total films if you include 2019’s The Curse of La Llorona , which seems to be a minor matter of inconsequential debate — belies a series that, unlike similarly large franchises such as Marvel or DC, really succeeds as intimate reflections on faith and family. It’s not hard to see why the Conjuring films in particular have been so popular: These are Catholic stories in which fundamentally good people are challenged to keep their souls intact in a world where God and the devil are not abstractions but real forces in our material world.

Spooky toys, cursed dolls and horned beasts notwithstanding, The Conjuring is, rather hokily, about the power of love to ward off the specter of evil

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