Critics easily dismiss the accuracy of horror films that claim to be based on true events. However, the references to the demon Valak, which was shown in ‘The Conjuring 2’ and ‘The Nun’ movies of ‘The Conjuring’ franchise, can be traced back to many centuries ago.
Valak or Valac appears in several grimoires in the Middle Ages. The grimoires were essentially manuals on demons and spells. In the 2018 film, ‘The Nun’, Valak appeared in the form of a Catholic nun. But in reality, Valak appeared as an evil child and could conjure serpents. As per one text dating back to the 17th century, Valak had an army of serpentine spirits and could summon live serpents to do whatever evil he commanded them to. It can be said that while Valak may be fictional and not reality, the great fear that it disseminated among the devout and pious people of times past was real and it continues to do so in movies that are made on it like ‘The Conjuring’ franchise.
The first mention of the name ‘Valak’
The first known reference to the name “Valak” was discovered in a 17th-century grimoire which was named ‘Clavicula Salomonis Regis’, or ‘The Key of Solomon’. Grimoires have been described as books that contain information about spells, conjurations, natural secrets, and ancient wisdom.
‘The Key of Solomon’ is considered to be a guide of the art of commanding both good and evil spirits.
‘The Key of Solomon’ talks about the famous king mentioned in the Old Testament who was well known for his wisdom. At some point of time around the second century BC, the idea spread that Solomon also knew astrology and magic. ‘The Key of Solomon’ has a list of 72 demons that the king is thought to have defeated during his rule. The grimoire provides readers with the names of these demons and directions for expelling these demons if they were to ever come into contact with them.
Valak, which is also spelled as Ualac, Valu, Volac, Doolas, or Volach is the 62nd spirit listed in ‘The Key of Solomon’, according to which Valac appears in the form of a boy with wings like those of an angel and riding on a dragon which is two-headed. The text says that Valac has a special power which is finding snakes and hidden treasures. This happens when Valac leads a posse of around 30 demons.
The Bible itself has no references to the 72 demons believed to have been vanquished by Solomon. The Key of Solomon was listed in the Vatican’s ‘List of Prohibited Books’. The list was continuously updated by the Church till it was done away with totally in 1966. ‘The Key of Solomon’ was considered by the text to be not only profane but also apostasy. Still, ‘The Key of Solomon’ was found in the custody of many Catholic priests.
The encounter between the Warrens and a ghost
Despite the text being banned, the grimoire has remained very popular in Europe and, due to the success of ‘The Conjuring’ franchise, its contents still hold an appeal among people till today.
The demon known as Valak first appeared in the second film of ‘The Conjuring’, ‘The Conjuring 2’, during which the character of the paranormal investigator named Lorraine Warren was able to stop Valak and banish it back to hell using its own name. In the third film of the franchise called ‘The Nun’, a Romanian monastery is possessed by a demonic presence who is attired in the clothes of a Catholic nun.
The movie’s story is said to be based on true events. Lorraine Warren was an actual person who was a paranormal investigator who encountered a presence in a Church. Ed and Lorraine Warren first came to be known after their investigation in the prominent ‘Amityville Horror’ case in 1976. Lorraine said that she was a psychic and a medium who would help her husband, Ed in paranormal investigations. Like his wife, Ed claimed that he was a ‘demonologist’.
Although the purportedly paranormal events which occurred at the Amityville house were later reported to be a hoax, the popularity of the book ‘The Amityville Horror’ in 1977 and the resultant movie on it in 1979 had made the Warrens known prominently. The Warrens were devout Catholics who said that they had examined over 10,000 cases of paranormal activity during their career.
The Warrens are said to have met a supernatural nun when they had gone on a trip to the haunted Borley church in the South of England in the 1970s. According to local legend, the church’s ghost was a nun who had been bricked alive in the walls of the convent many centuries ago after having had an affair with a monk. Lorraine was said to have met that very ghost person-to-person at midnight on an evening in the graveyard of the church and had left the churchyard unhurt.
Depiction of Valak in ‘The Conjuring’ franchise
The recent depiction of Valak as a nun in the movie ‘The Conjuring 2’ was a fictional invention by the director of The Conjuring 2, James Wan. Wan said in 2016 that he had a fairly good idea of the outline of the movie as a whole, but one thing which he wasn’t sure about was the layout of the demon character.
Wan said that the actual Lorraine Warren had told him about an eerie entity that had appeared while looking like a swirling tornado with a hood. Wan had then decided to portray the figure of the ghost wearing a nun’s costume to put it into a sharper conflict with the Catholic faith of the Warrens. Since it was a demonic vision that had haunted and attacked Lorraine Warren, Wan wanted to portray it as something that attacked her very belief. Therefore, he decided to cast the spirit as a nun.
The idea of being terrorized by one’s own faith was so important for Wan, that Valak became a central character in the third movie of the franchise, ‘The Nun’ which was released in 2018. In the film, the demon terrorizes and possesses the religious members of a Romanian abbey in 1952. Valak has a very shocking and intimidating presence with its appearance having black veins and lips in a ghostly-white face.