7 Horrifying Demons, Monsters, and Spirits You'll See in Annabelle Comes Home

The most exciting new creature I got to hear about is an entity known as "The Ferryman." I'm sure you're familiar with the legend: he's the ghostly figure, sometimes called Charon, who brings lost souls across the River Styx in the Underworld. Historically, many lost loved ones were burned or buried with coins on their eyes; these were meant to pay for passage across the river. And if you didn't have coins? Well, maybe you'd be lost forever.

The Ferryman in Annabelle Comes Home is a lot like the Crooked Man in The Conjuring 2. He's not based on a Warren case file, and he's more like the manifestation of an unknown evil or another kind of demon.

During my visit, I got to see the incredibly detailed cloak that was used as a costume for the character. I met with costume designer Leah Butler, who showed me her meticulous and impressive work. First of all, the Ferryman will stand over seven feet tall because the actor playing him will be wearing impossibly high platform boots. The Ferryman has a a huge, voluminous cloak of gauzy blacks and browns; think of something Gandalf or Dumbledore might wear, but much darker and drearier. He has an epic hood, a staff (or an oar perhaps?) with a lantern on it, and a terrifying face. The mask looked withered and inhuman, with coins over the eyes.

"Gary and I were just sort of talking about ideas and he said, 'I have this Ferryman. It'd be great if he was in a cloak but not really a cloak.' So I got inspired by him and who he is," Butler said. "In the River Styx, there's a lot of marshland and mud so kind of is an inspiration with all this muddiness and kind of very from the earth and organic sort of feel to it." And so, she showed me small details: dark feathers and cheesecloth and more, all used to create a never-before-seen and otherworldly texture.

The next creature I got to hear about is the Bloody Bride. Butler did a pretty great job of describing her character: "[She's] sort of a ghost bride, and so the idea here was to create a wedding dress that really set our movie apart and was a little bit different from the Conjuring universe," Butler said.

I got an up-close look at the Bloody Bride's gorgeous silk wedding gown, which drapes in gorgeous cascades all the way to the floor. "I got inspired by this sort of 1930s feel for her. So that beautiful silk and the way it drapes is lovely. And there's this beautiful, long train that we've really been able to work in visually to make it seem very interesting," she said, pointing to different areas of the dress. And then, a fun factoid: "There are 68 buttons to button, 48 in the back and 10 on each sleeve."

Of course, there's another version of this beautiful wedding dress: one that is soaked and splattered with blood. "The dress itself lives on a mannequin form in that corner, in this beautiful state," Butler said, describing how it's meant to look at rest in the artifact room. "When she comes alive, she's this evil bloody bride who kills her husbands, and whoever wears the dress is haunted."

Peter Safran, who has served as a producer on all of The Conjuring universe movies, gave me a great delineation for these two unsettling characters. "I would say the Bloody Bride probably feels more like the demon nun in the sense that it's somewhat grounded," he said, "and I would say Ferryman to me feels more like Crooked Man. But I think there's room for all of those within the universe."

We don't know much about the samurai suit other than the fact that it's a pretty notable object in the artifact room. During my visit, I got to witness a pretty fun sequence that proves the samurai suit will play a pretty big role. In the scene in question, Judy and her babysitter, Mary Ellen, are walking down a hallway in the house. The samurai suit is smack dab in the middle, perfectly still, but the hallway is too narrow that they must sidle around it.

As Mary Ellen scoots around the suit, it follows her with its head, like it's watching her. When she gets to the end of the hall, she turns around to give it one last look. That's when it whips its head around to look directly at her. Naturally, she jumps and hurries away.

It's unclear if the samurai suit will actually animate and behave like a real person at any point in the film or if it'll just sort of appear in strange and unsettling places. Either way, get ready for it to send a chill down your spine.

OK, technically, I didn't officially hear anything about this spirit, but one of the actors in the film may have accidentally let it slip. During my interviews with the cast, I asked about the spooky supernatural experiences they had on set. McKenna Grace, who plays Judy, was trying to remember one incident in particular. "I'm pretty sure it was the day we shot the scene with the priest ghost," she told me.

The moment kind of went over my head, but I later realized I hadn't heard anything about a supposed priest ghost. Keep your eyes peeled for a literal holy ghost, friends.

It's hard to forget the wide and vacant eyes of the little monkey toy from The Conjuring, especially since it factors into some of the scariest parts of the film. It's unclear if the monkey will "activate," so to speak, but star Madison Iseman did confirm that it would make an appearance. "Yes, the monkey's back, too. I'm trying to think. I don't really know what all I can say." That means this could be an Easter egg or a demon! Double the fun!

Since James Wan directed Aquaman and has had a heavy hand in The Conjuring films (he's a producer on Annabelle Comes Home), we should've expected the worlds would collide in some fun and secret way. If you're a diehard Aquaman fan, you might want to keep your eyes peeled for a certain piece of ancient Atlantean technology in the artifact room. Does that mean Ed and Lorraine Warren are friends with the Justice League? OK, maybe that's a leap.

The last Easter egg is so subtle, you'd probably miss it! As you may or may not know, the real-life Ed Warren loved to paint as a hobby. Lest we forget, the spooky nun Valak appears in a painting in his office in The Conjuring 2! To add more authenticity to the Warren home, set designer Jennifer Spence added something pretty cool: a painting in the style of Ed Warren.

But that's not all. The painting is actually a depiction of the remote house in Annabelle: Creation! So, if you look for the art on the living room wall, you should see a pretty familiar landscape.