Here's how The Nun connects to The Conjuring cinematic universe, which is apparently a thing

If you’ve watched films like The Conjuring 2 or Annabelle, you were likely too busy wondering how their stories connect to be frightened by anything on screen. This is an obvious drawback to movies meant to scare you. Yes, there might be discordant violins leading up to the sudden appearance of a spooky ghost, but how can you get properly freaked out when you’re sitting in a bright room with pen and paper, plotting out the timeline of James Wan’s shared world of ghoulish happenings?

Well, a promotion for The Nun’s release is here to set the fictional order of what we must now refer to as the, uh, “Conjuring universe” straight.

We can now easily see that The Nun, set in 1952, is the origin point of all the demonic shenanigans that would continue to haunt anyone unfortunate enough to live in a house or buy a doll in years to come. The latest point in the series, chronologically-speaking, is The Conjuring 2, which takes place in 1977. Ignore the “Creation” part of Annabelle: Creation and the “1" now associated with 2013's The Conjuring and it should be possible to remain grounded in the rapidly expanding world of what James Wan calls a series filled with “so many other great stories that would be awesome to look into.”

If that’s not clear enough, consider, too, that all of the films are connected by the presence of fictionalized versions of real-life charlatans Ed and Lorraine Warren. As long as you keep in mind that their hairstyles and the width of their pant legs represent each film’s place in time, the mythology of the Conjuverse will remain clear and your mind open to the possibility of being scared.

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