The Crooked Man in The Conjuring: Who He Is and Where He Appears

The Crooked Man is a cursed toy in the Warrens' collection, first seen in the closing scene of The Conjuring 2 (2016), directed by James Wan. Ed Warren brings the toy home at the end of the film and places it among the other haunted objects, next to the Annabelle doll, and that is how the character enters the wider franchise. The credits list him as Crooked Man, with a Crooked Man Shadow (uncredited) also listed.

He belongs to the universe built around the conjuring movies, which runs from the Warrens' own cases to the spin-offs about Annabelle and the nun.

The Conjuring 2 itself is set around the 1977 Enfield case in north London, where a single mother, Peggy Hodgson, struggles with strange events in a council house. The Warrens travel there to judge whether the case is real. The Crooked Man sits at the edge of that story, as a souvenir of the film rather than a force in its middle.

The Crooked Man has almost no story arc on screen, because he appears at the very end of The Conjuring 2 as a finished object rather than as a character who moves through the plot. The film follows the Warrens from the Amityville house, where Lorraine sees a demonic nun and a vision of Ed being impaled, to Enfield, where Janet Hodgson speaks in the voice of an old man who says he is Bill Wilkins.

That storyline runs through a public debate over whether the case is real, a skeptical investigator named Anita Gregory and a sudden return to the house. Lorraine realizes the old man is only a front for the nun, learns the demon's name, Valak, and orders it back to Hell. Ed saves Janet but is nearly impaled on a broken tree stump that matches Lorraine's vision, and he survives the fall she had foreseen. The Hodgsons are reunited.

Only then does the toy arrive. Back at home, Ed adds a haunted Crooked Man toy to the collection, and the film uses that quiet beat to set up later spin-off films about the Nun and the Crooked Man. The Nun followed in 2018 and The Nun II in 2023. No Crooked Man film is among the ten theatrical releases in the series to date.

The Crooked Man is tied most directly to Ed Warren, who places the toy in the collection at the end of The Conjuring 2. Ed is played by Patrick Wilson, and his wife Lorraine is played by Vera Farmiga. The couple keep their dangerous objects in a room at their home, and the toy joins a set that already holds the Annabelle doll. Their own profiles are ed warren conjuring and lorraine warren conjuring.

Is he also Valak? The film names Valak as the demon behind the Enfield haunting, and the nun is the form Lorraine sees in her visions. The ending does not connect the toy to Valak by name, so the two stand as separate characters who share a film. If you want the nun, go to valak the nun.

The Hodgson family, led by Peggy Hodgson (Frances O'Connor), sit at the center of the Enfield story. Her children are Janet Hodgson (Madison Wolfe), Margaret, Billy Hodgson (Benjamin Haigh) and Johnny. Janet is the focus of the haunting, and Billy and the other children live through it in the same council house. The toy is not part of their haunting. It arrives afterward as the Warrens' keepsake.

The annabelle doll is the closest comparison. Both are objects stored in the Warrens' collection, and both lead to spin-offs. The doll already has three films of its own, including annabelle 2014.

The Crooked Man ends The Conjuring 2 as a cursed toy in the Warrens' collection, and the films released since then do not change that status. The ending shows Ed adding him to the collection, and no later film in the series shows him leaving it.

Has his own film happened? The Crooked Man spin-off that the ending of The Conjuring 2 sets up is not among the ten theatrical releases to date, which you can follow in conjuring movies in order. The next film is conjuring first communion, which Warner Bros. dated for September 10, 2027, according to TheWrap.

Is he real? The films are based on cases claimed by Ed and Lorraine Warren, and the Crooked Man appears on screen as a cursed object rather than as a documented part of those claims. Nothing here is proof of the paranormal. For background on the claims themselves, see conjuring true story.

In my opinion, the best Crooked Man moment is the one the film saves for last: Ed placing the toy beside the Annabelle doll. It is a small, quiet beat, and it could be argued that its power comes from how little it explains.

The Conjuring 2 spends most of its 134 minutes on a long, loud fight with Valak, so a closing shot of one more cursed object in the artifact room reminds the viewer that the Warrens never really finish. Perhaps that is the point of the scene, because their collection keeps growing after each case ends.

The weakness, again in my opinion, is that the scene is a promise with no payment yet. The Nun films delivered on Valak's side of the setup, with the nun 2018 and the nun ii, while the Crooked Man is still waiting. If you are new to the saga, watch The Conjuring 2 for the Enfield haunting and treat the toy as a bonus.