10 Ways The Conjuring and Insidious Could Be In The Same Universe

The universes of The Conjuring and Insidious are pretty expansive. They are both created by the same people and actually star some of the same actors. The franchises follow very similar patterns of horror stories undergone by families who typically need the help of a supernatural expert.

The worlds in which these two stories take place in always seem to look really similar in style and aesthetic. The horror is truly horrifying and will drastically put its audiences on edge. And since The Conjuring universe is so expansive, maybe its possible that is falls into the same universe as the Insidious films.

10 Timeline

The timelines between the two franchises actually make a lot of sense. The Conjuring films begin their films as early as the 1940s and go through to the early 70s so far. In Insidious, fans get to see a bit of Elise’s childhood which takes place in the 40s and 50s. But the bulk of the series takes place in the early 2000s. Because of this, the timelines very well could happen in the same universe, without conflicting with one another.

9 Mediums

As mentioned, both franchises feature a lead protagonist who happens to be a medium for the supernatural, Lorraine Warren and Elise Rainier. In both franchises, they make sure to showcase that when the mediums are in their supernatural worlds, connecting with the spirits and demons, that their eyes go completely white. It makes an even stronger case for the likelihood that the franchises are in the same universe as maybe Elise and Lorraine have the same kind of medium abilities.

8 Similar Demons

This could just be caused by the aesthetic similarities or the fact that the universes are created by the same person, but many of the demonic entities in these two franchises look rather similar. The Bride in Black in Insidious: Chapter 2 and the Nun from The Conjuring 2 (and The Nun) share a similar aesthetic, while the demon attached to Annabelle looks pretty similar in theme to the “Darth Maul” demon from the first Insidious.

7 Patrick Wilson

This actor stars in both franchises in similar roles. In both, he is a kind father with a keen sense of the supernatural and one of the main protagonists. Since Josh, his character in Insidious, is younger than Ed Warren, his character in The Conjuring, maybe Josh is somehow related to Ed, whether by family or some kind of spiritual metaphor.

It helps also that Insidious 1 & 2 are actually the last chronologically in the franchise and end with him being totally all right.

6  Contacting A Loved One, Getting A Demon

This idea seems to be a trend in the supernatural world. In Insidious: Chapter 3, Quinn attempts to contact her mother by occult means and assumes that her mother is watching over her, trying to communicate. Because she openly welcomes the conversation, the demon posing as her mother gets full control and then possesses Quinn. A similar thing happens in Annabelle. The way the demon in that story always gets access is by pretending to be a lost soul. In Annabelle: Creation it pretended to be the deceased daughter of the dollmaker, and in the first film, it pretended to be a lost ghost of a little girl to the nurses.

5 Possession

Both franchises have a lot of possession stories, and they seem to all happen in the same manner. In The Conjuring, Bathsheba possesses the mother in the Perron family and needs a full exorcism before she lets go of the mother’s life. In the second film, Janice gets possessed by Bill Wilkins and her possession story is really similar to that of the Bride in Black’s over Josh in Insidious Chapter: 2.

4 More Than A Haunted House

Both franchises show that the horrors of the supernatural go so much further than a haunted house. In The Conjuring franchise, Annabelle, Valak, and even La Llorona aren’t bound by the rules of haunting a haunted house. They can go wherever, haunt whomever, causing all kinds of chaos around them.

Likewise, the Insidious franchise establishes within its first film that the demons that lurk in dreams aren’t bound by the house, but rather the person.

3 The “Other” Side

Both The Conjuring 2 and a number of films in the Insidious franchise feature “another” side. In the Insidious franchise, Elise calls this place “The Further,” while in The Conjuring there isn’t really another name for it, however, Lorraine connects to it during the seance she has at Amytiville. She sees herself as Ronald DeFeo Jr. and sees his crimes through her own eyes. Something similar happens to Josh in the first Insidious when he goes to the Further to rescue Dalton and sees the gruesome murder that once occurred in his old home.

2 Typically Focus On Large Families

In both Conjuring Films and the first two Insidious movies, the hauntings usually happen to big families. What makes this aspect truly scary is due to the fact that normally in horror movies, no one believes the one being haunted. But in these films, the rest of the families see and believe the haunted member almost immediately. In Insidious, Josh and Renai have three children of different age ranges. In The Conjuring films, the Perrons are a family of seven, and the Hodgsons are a family of five. In each family, one of the children was the primary focus, with a number of their siblings and parents seeing the paranormal entities as well.

1 Written By James Wan

As mentioned before, the teams behind the films are relatively the same. They may come from different studios, but Insidious and The Conjuring were both originally written and directed by Wan. He co-wrote Insidious with the same person he co-wrote Saw with and then went on to write The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2 on his own. There are small easter eggs thrown around Wan’s films, such as a drawing of Jigsaw in Insidious and the Annabelle doll in Aquaman. Perhaps there are even more easter eggs within The Conjuring and Insidious that just haven’t been found yet.

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