By Danny Anderson

First, you stare down creaking stairs that descend into a cold and humid darkness. Then the musty smell of decay moldering under layers of dust overwhelms the rest of your senses. As your eyes adjust, you make the chilling discovery: you are surrounded by ghosts.

There’s a reason so many horror films feature basements.

When Freud wrote about “The Uncanny,” he surely imagined basements. The basement is an uncanny space, part of the house, but not quite part of the home. Unheimlich. Yes, some basements are finished and more comfortably integrated into domestic life. Many are not, however. These are little netherworlds, places to banish unwanted things to while keeping possession of them. Objects brought here are undead — neither kept nor gotten rid of. We rarely think of the spiritual influence these things have on us.

These are the kinds of spaces where I’ve spent much of the last few years. I’m at “that age.”

This is an exploration of a corner of The Conjuring film universe. But it is also a larger tale about materialism and a particularly American form of idolatry: consumerism. Our culture has devoted itself to the production and consumption of manufactured goods. Buying and selling is, above anything else, what we worship. Some of this activity is useful and necessary, but most of it is not. Heinously so. The result of all this commerce is nothing short of sinful. Oceans are filled with plastic bottles, and our very bodies are filled with microplastics too. We’ve dug great holes in the Earth to bury the garbage we’ve tossed out to make room for new garbage. If one day an alien race discovers the ruins of our civilization, they will no doubt ask, “what in God’s name were these creatures thinking?”

But this is more about the things we don’t throw away. What is the spiritual effect of owning and clutching onto objects over lifetimes and generations?

In the last four years, time has taken the inevitable toll on my family. Age and disease have combined to drastically change our lives. My father’s long battle with Alzheimer’s ended with a whimper over one October weekend. At the same time, my wife’s parents realized that a hopeless combination of dementia and mobility issues meant they could no longer live safely without assistance. Once the decision to move to Pennsylvania and live with my wife, our kids, and me was made, my life battling the monsters of the basement began.

Our small home in town was never going to accommodate six people so we found a larger house outside of town and moved in together (it really sounds like a story that might inspire one of these films, now that I think of it). The joys and struggles of taking care of my in-laws is another story for another essay; here I want to focus on hard and cold logistics. The speed of the events following my father’s death forced us to pack and move three households (my parents’ estate, my in-laws, and our own). Moving isn’t magical. It doesn’t happen by snapping one’s fingers. And there is no exorcism ritual for it. It is only accomplished with back-breaking labor and the will to toss out the past.

I knew that my father had been what people sometimes call a “flea marketer,” that is, a person who went to flea markets a lot. Virtually every weekend and, frequently, week days as well, my dad would be at one flea market or another. If you’ve never been, it really does become a lovely community with the same faces showing up year after year and getting to know one another through this unique form of commerce. Like many other working-class people who attend such events, my dad became convinced that there was money to be made in the buying and reselling of things like baseball cards, Beanie Babies, and digital watches branded with NASCAR logos. Added to this hobby, this reason for being, my mother was a collector as well. Her imagination was fired by curvy furniture and supposedly collectible glassware. My parents were making up for childhoods defined by Appalachian poverty, and they made up for lost consumer time at a blistering pace. Their consumerism was driven by a lifelong, unshakeable mentality of scarcity. You could never collect too much, because you never knew when you might use it.

So, my parents basement filled up. And then objects began spilling into the garage. When it began to collapse under the burden, storage units were rented and maintained for years. No buyer ever came and the mice took some, but not nearly enough. At what point along this timeline might we have considered these objects cursed?

The stage was set for months of brutal, thankless labor going through, hauling, and renting dumpsters and moving trucks. And the toll was also emotional. Pieces of our parents’ lives, which they had deemed so important, were tossed anywhere we could find, and we shook our heads at the enormity of the wasted resources. And our experience with my parents’ objects were a mere drop in the bucket when compared to the calamitous mountain of my in-laws’ possessions, which they defiantly lugged along through life.

And with a quick survey of any city, town, or village in America, one will see an explosion of storage unit facilities, a sign of our collective desperation to remove the objects of our consumerism from our daily lives. Things we don’t need, but can’t part with. Possessions that we have become possessed by.

The Conjuring Universe and Cursed Objects

In times of stress, I often retreat into works of art, sometimes for comfort, sometimes for guidance, and often just to feel a little less alone. As we plowed through our moving work, the third Conjuring movie, The Devil Made Me Do It, was released, so I decided to finally sit down with the other films of The Conjuring universe, a series I had largely missed. Though a lifelong fan of horror films, the sub-genre of demonic possession was never a favorite of mine, undoubtedly an outcome of my religious upbringing in fundamentalist traditions, where the Devil seemingly lurked everywhere.

The cinematic universe consists of three Conjuring films which focus on Ed and Loraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), three that tell the extended story of the possessed doll Annabelle, and two movies about The Nun, which trace the origins of the demon Valak, who the Warrens battled in Conjuring 2. (There is also a somewhat silly internet debate about whether or not The Curse of La Llorona technically belongs in the shared universe, a third rail I wish not to touch here). The Warrens are the primary heroes of the series, investigating cases of demonic possession in collaboration with the Catholic Church and saving families from their encounters with evil, all with an astonishingly sincere faith in God. They are among the most conservatively Christian films ever made. And yet somehow, the Conjuring universe is one of the most successful horror franchises in film history.

While I approached the films largely out of a sense of duty to my fandom, I found something unexpected along the way. I already had a sense that the films were uncannily consistent with many of the assumptions of the church of my youth — Ed and Lorraine Warren, as they are presented in the films at least (the real-life Warrens are more than a little controversial), are icons of traditional family values and missionary service to God. In addition, their battles with supernatural forces fit neatly with a cultural imagination heavily under the influence of Jack Chick’s comic tracts and Frank E, Peretti’s This Present Darkness. I was essentially bred to love these movies.

What I wasn’t expecting was the powerful insight the films brought to my frustrations with materialism and American consumer habits. My rage at the mess I found myself wading through was narrated mainly through material critiques about the tendency of the rate of profit to decline and the impact of supply-chain pressures on the environment. However, The Conjuring and its cinematic siblings put my quandary in spiritual terms, quite conservative ones, as it turned out. Thinking about material accumulation as a spiritual issue, an affront to God, turned out to be a way to deepen my experience with overconsumption. If I had to deal with cinematic demons, so be it. But Ed Warren’s distillation of the three stages of demonic activity makes sense to me now: infestation, oppression, possession.

Music Boxes and Communion with the Dead

First, how does an object become “infested” with evil? And what is the line between innocent nostalgia and spiritually-disastrous infestation?

Each of the first two Conjuring films make creepily effective use of music boxes, an art object combining visual design and sound, making them perfect vehicles of fright in horror movies. Conjuring and Conjuring 2 offers the viewer two music boxes that provide a narrative arc for the story of infestation.

The first film follows the trauma of the Perron family as they move into a home haunted by Bathsheba, the malevolent ghost of a murderous witch who devoted herself to Satan. On moving day, the Perron’s young daughter finds a music box at the base of the twisted tree where Bathsheba hanged herself. It’s a circus-themed box, with a big top cover that reveals a clown inside as the music plays. Inside the lid is a spinning mirror with a hypnotic swirl.

The box soon becomes the medium through which the girl gets to know “Rory,” the ghost a boy killed long ago by his mother, under Bathsheba’s wicked influence. Believe it or not, I’d like to make the case that this is, by-and-large, a positive model for a kept object (perhaps not in an orthodox Christian sense, given scriptural prohibitions against communion with the dead, but let’s bracket that here).

Both the little girl and the dead boy need friends and the music box makes that connection possible. While these scenes are chilling, there is also something undeniably sweet about them. Let me relate this to my father’s possessions.

My dad loved pocket knives and he gave me a few during his life. After he died, as I dug through drawers and boxes, I found many more. And I must confess, I kept several and I have one in my pocket nearly all the time. While I don’t literally think that his essence is with me when I fiddle with one of them, the knives bridge a lost connection, and holding something that he once held is mysteriously comforting.

In The Conjuring, Rory’s music box, like everything else in Bathsheba’s presence, is corrupted by the witch’s evil. Eventually Lorraine sees the full extent of the witch’s depravity in the mirror. In the end, it is removed to the Warren’s artifact room, which I will explore later.

The Conjuring 2 upends this vision of a blessed music box, emphasizing the corruption of a keepsake.

The sequel finds the Warren’s travelling to London to rescue the Hodgson family. The single mother and her children live in poverty and are suddenly thrust into a battle with the ghost of Bill Wilkins, who asserts a claim on their home (with an increasing level of violence) ultimately possessing the young daughter, Janet (Madison Wolfe). It turns out that the spectral Wilkins is being used himself, and is possessed by the demon Valak, who has long targeted the Warrens and takes the form of a wicked nun to torment the faithful Catholics.

But Wilkins is not the only object of possession. Valak also possesses young Billy Hodgson’s music box.

The box is more of a toy, a musical shadow box depicting “The Crooked Man” with an accompanying song, which Billy (Patrick McAuley) and his family use to help the boy treat his stuttering. The box is a beautiful investment the poor family has made to both comfort Billy and help him overcome his speech impediment. It’s an object worth keeping, and at the beginning of the film it’s imbued with love and familiar affection (there’s a particularly beautiful scene where Janet lovingly helps her younger brother use the box to practice a tongue-twister).

But as the film’s plot grows darker, Valak infuses its spirit into the box and uses it for evil. Under Valak’s possession, the Crooked Man’s comical image disappears from the toy and manifests, monstrously, in the world, attacking the family.

Taken together, these two music boxes narrate a story about objects and possession. A thing may absorb spirit, good or bad. And possessions can end up being the possessors. But what to do with the infested possessions?

Storage as Sacred Space

When my in-laws built their retirement home on a plot of land they had vacationed on for years, basements and garages were non-negotiable requirements. The end result of this space was a kind of corruption of a good thing. A laudable ethos of reusing items and avoiding waste had, under the influence of discretionary income and ample storage, morphed over time into an ethos of hoarding. Nothing was being thrown out, but that fact didn’t interfere with continued acquisition. Sure, there were already crates of pumice soap bought on clearance years ago, but there was room to stock up at the latest sale — eventually we will use it right?

As a result, the basement of the new home was fitted almost immediately with aisles of home-made shelves — defiantly screwed deep into the concrete floor — to contain things. Initially, we joked about it, calling it “Wal-Mart.” But as the years passed and the concrete floors began to crack under the weight, we began suggesting they begin purging. These overtures were always harshly rebuffed. The contents of the basement, cleaning supplies, old books, records and 8-tracks, broken washing machine motors, hundreds of blank VHS tapes, and hundreds more filled with decades of recorded television. Of course, there were items we might call special, like family photos and camping supplies, but these were lost in the flood of abject consumerism. Still, the contents of the basement were strictly monitored and any attempt to remove them risked an emotional confrontation with my father-in-law. These rules applied to three garages stuffed floor to ceiling on the property as well.

Across the state, my own parents were falling into similar patterns. The basement slowly filled with antique lampshades, porcelain figurines, and dishes my mother liked to call “depression glass” or “carnival glass.” I never knew what those terms meant exactly, but I always knew they implied those items were off limits and would stay tucked away, wrapped in threadbare newspapers, and stuffed into banana boxes. And as for my father, it did not matter how many socket-sets he had, there was always room for one more, in his heart at least, if not the physical reality of his garage.

The Conjuring offers some insight into the fraught spiritual consequences of this kind of space.

The most striking set in the film series is the “Artifact Room.” It’s a space in the Warrens’ mid-century split-level reserved to collect, contain, and lock up cursed or possessed objects collected during their paranormal adventures. The room houses the aforementioned music boxes, along with pianos, wedding dresses, old coins, and countless other objects, including of course Annabelle, the doll with the demon Malthus attached to it. Annabelle was struck a chord with viewers making her the dramatic center of the series. With a uniquely powerful evil attached to her, Annabelle is kept in a glass case bearing an ominous sign that reads “Warning: Positively Do Not Open.”

Having spent so much time emptying basements full of things that had been “positively not to be removed,” the Warrens’ artifact room resonates on an uncanny wavelength; it is both awe-inspiring and spiritually sickening. The Artifact Room and the basements I toiled in all function as sacred spaces, housing objects with tangible auras, and with a distinct reverence. In Annabelle Comes Home, a prequel film in the franchise, the Warrens employ a priest to bless the room upon Annabelle’s arrival and the series makes it clear that the ritual is performed on a weekly basis. Though the items in the room are “infested,” having been attached to evil entities or used in evil rituals, the space in which they are housed is sacred. It is the only way to keep the infested items from oppressing, then possessing, other human beings. Annabelle Comes Home is the story of a terrifying night, when the demon-infested doll is set loose and rouses the other trapped evil spirits for some good, old-fashioned oppression and a failed possession. The film demonstrates the importance of the Warren’s spiritual vigilance.

The third Conjuring film, The Devil Made Me Do It, introduces a family that serves as a darker, mirror-image of the Warrens and their Artifact Room. In doing so, the film presents a nightmare image of a world without vigilant oversight of its cursed objects.

The film follows the Warrens as they try to prove that a young man committed a brutal murder while under demonic influence. The story is inspired by another true-life Warren case, depicted by the documentary The Devil on Trial (2023). In the course of their investigation, they meet a former priest named Kastner (portrayed by the great John Noble, who seems to be himself cursed. Doomed to play terrible fathers). Kastner, like the Warrens was a lifelong paranormal researcher who collected cursed objects from his investigations.

However, unlike the Warrens, Kastner lacked vigilance in keeping the infested objects from possessing other people. His secret daughter was raised near Kastner’s reliquary and became obsessed with the occult. Eventually she becomes possessed by the evil in the room and becomes a demon-summoning occultist who uses magic to oppress and possess innocent people in the community.

Remembering the Dead, or Demonic Hoarding?

At the start of the first Conjuring film, Lorraine Warren explains the Annabelle problem to the young nurses being oppressed by her. The doll does not house a human’s ghost; it is attached to an inhuman spirit. And to make matters worse, she informs them that, “Demonic spirits don’t possess things, they possess people.” Annabelle the doll is not possessed; she is a conduit for a demon named Malthus to oppress, then possess human souls. The nurses had been under the delusion that the sweet ghost of little Annabelle Higgins wanted to live with them through the doll. But there was no Annabelle, there was only Malthus, who lurked behind the doll seeking to ensnare a human victim. This element of the series gets to the painful heart of oppressive accumulation.

So many of the lifeless things cluttering American basements and storage units are kept because they are deemed to be “special” by having once been possessed by a loved one. This has certainly been the case for my family. And I often feel possessed by these things.

The fanciful wish that a human spirit can persist in objects is central to the trilogy of Annabelle films in the Conjuring universe, just as the doll itself is the centerpiece of the Warrens’ Artifact Room. The backstory about Annabelle Higgins, first introduced in The Conjuring, then fleshed out in Annabelle, is a demonic Trojan Horse. The story of a lost little girl who wants to live on in a doll is a diabolical trick played by the demon Malthus to gain access to human souls. There never was an Annabelle; there was only ever Malthus.

The Annabelle prequel, Annabelle Creation, provides some clever, and often heartbreaking context for the demon’s plan. In it we see Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife, Esther (Miranda Otto) living a quiet, happy life with their daughter Annabelle (nicknamed Bee). Mullins is a master dollmaker and the film opens with his creation of the Annabelle doll which he gives to his daughter. Bee is tragically killed in a freak automobile accident and the grieving parents inadvertently invite Malthus to inhabit the doll, tricked into thinking it’s their dead daughter’s spirit they’ve conjured. The film offers a powerful lesson for those of us still wanting to hold onto our lost loved ones by clutching to their possessions. There is a great spiritual risk in transforming the people we loved into objects. We often end up valuing those objects more than the living people in our lives.

I am currently making what I hope is my last pass through what remains of the possessions that have been possessing (and oppressing) me. In the garage behind my house there are still things to grapple with and every day I curse myself for bringing them along with me this far. How many ratchet-sets from my father’s garage will I ever need? What was I thinking when I kept all these tools? Upon reflection, it’s become apparent to me that what I was really trying to hold onto was some aspect of my father. But my father is dead. He does not live on in wrenches and router bits. I was deceived, no less so than the Mullins or the nurses who gave permission to Annabelle to infest, oppress, and finally possess them.

Danny Anderson has published stories and essays in a variety of publications, including Popular Culture and Theology, Across the Margin, Litbreak, Dream Pop Press, PopMatters, Film Inquiry, along with his Substack, UnTaking. He is working on his second novel while defiantly shopping around his first. He lives and works in the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania, where he teaches at Mount Aloysius College.