It’s wild that the demonic nun known as Valak has become such a horror icon, starring in her own movie back in 2018 with a sequel on the way, because the character almost didn’t even make it into The Conjuring 2. As James Wan has noted in the past, Valak was actually a final hour replacement for a totally different demon. A demon we have new footage of this week.
Over on Instagram this afternoon, James Wan has shared some on-set video footage of the original demon for the very first time, calling it the best demon that he’s never used!
Wan explains, “The original VALAK in The Conjuring 2 was going to be this winged demon. A beautifully/hideously sculpted animatronic puppet head and practical body-suit by the super talented @justin.raleigh (whom I’ve worked with on pretty much all my movies since Insidious 1) and his team @fracturedfxinc, worn by @j_bishara.”
“I think I have only one fully finished shot with CGI wings in place. It was really grand and epic. But as cool as it was, it felt out of place within the Conjuring world we had built,” Wan continues. “And so during post production, I reconceived the villain — feeling it needed to be something more grounded, more personal, and creepier. And thus the demonic Nun was born.
“We cast the amazing @bonnieaarons1 for the role, and all the nun stuff was shot during additional photography, including coming up with new scare set-pieces like the “painting on the wall”, and used visual effects to put the new villain into existing scenes.”
Check out footage of the unused – and unnamed – The Conjuring 2 demon below!
