19 Horror Prequels to Catch After You See The Nun

With Warner Bros.’ The Nun setting box office records for The Conjuring Universe this past weekend, ComingSoon.net wants you to see some of the other horror prequels where you can find the origin stories of all your favorite ghosts, demons, serial killers and creeps. Check out our list of 19 Horror Prequels to Catch After You See The Nun in our gallery below!

When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novitiate on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together they uncover the order’s unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of the same demonic nun that first terrorized audiences in The Conjuring 2, as the abbey becomes a horrific battleground between the living and the damned.

The Nun stars Oscar-nominated Demian Bichir (A Better Life) as Father Burke, Taissa Farmiga (American Horror Story) as Sister Irene, Jonas Bloquet (Elle) as local villager Frenchie, Charlotte Hope (Game of Thrones) as the abbey’s Sister Victoria, Ingrid Bisu (Toni Erdmann) as Sister Oana, and Bonnie Aarons, reprising her Conjuring 2 role as the title character.

Filmmaker James Wan, director of the record-setting horror hits The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2, explores another dark corner of that universe with The Nun. Directed by Corin Hardy (The Hallow), the new fright-fest is produced by Wan and by Peter Safran, who has produced all the films in The Conjuring franchise.

The Nun is now playing in theaters everywhere!

18 Horror Prequels to See After The Nun

Amityville II: The Possession

The house at 112 Ocean Avenue was host to ghostly happenings in 1979's The Amityville Horror, but this film seeks to tell a story loosely based on the DeFeo family murders that preceded it. The family name was changed from DeFeo to Montelli, and a demonic exorcism was added for good measure.
Psycho IV: The Beginning

Working from a screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who penned Hitchcock's original, director Mick Garris helmed this TV movie that explored Norman Bates' early life in the 1940's and 50's far before Bates Motel. It also served as a sequel to the previous three, with Anthony Perkins reprising his iconic role one final time.
Prometheus

Ridley Scott returned to the world he created in 1979's Alien to tell the story of what came before, but instead of telling a simple prequel story he created a far more original, complex and occasionally baffling backstory involving the Engineers of human civilization.
Alien: Covenant

For his second prequel, Scott dropped most of the "Chariots of the Gods" stuff for a trite and often lazy horror story involving Xenomorphs running amuck on some dumb space colonists. Danny McBride is the film's one bright spot as a space cowboy and true survivor.
The Thing

This prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 classic remake traces the team of Norwegian and American scientists who initially discovered the shapeshifting alien buried deep in the ice of Antarctica. Practical effects by Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr. were stupidly replaced in post-production by terrible CGI.
Red Dragon

Although it had been adapted quite well by Michael Mann for 1986's Manhunter, director Brett Ratner helped bring Anthony Hopkins' version of Hannibal Lecter into the story, with Edward Norton taking over the Will Graham part in this story set before The Silence of the Lambs.
Hannibal Rising

Eager to beat a fairly dead horse, producer Dino De Laurentiis squeezed one last ounce of box office blood out of Thomas Harris' cannibalistic serial killer with this origin story starring Gaspard Ulliel as Hannibal Lecter.
Final Destination 5

Although this film takes place before the previous four the audience doesn't truly realize it until the final moments of the film. This was the first installment in the series to receive largely positive reviews from critics.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

This film from Jonathan Liebesman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) takes place in 1969, 5 years before Tobe Hooper's original masterwork (and four years before the 2003 remake). It tells the origin of Leatherface as a boy left in a dumpster and taken in by a young Luda Mae.
Leatherface

This 1965-set prequel ignores the events of the previous reboots in order to tell the story of Leatherface's origin as a normal kid who was turned into the mental case we know in love through serious trauma.
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans

Chronicling the origins of the vampire-lycan war, this film dumps Kate Beckinsale's Selene in order to focus on Sonja (Rhona Mitra), the daughter of Viktor (Bill Nighy) who kind-of resembles Selene which is why Viktor ultimately spared Selene's life.
Paranormal Activity 2

This second entry in the wildly successful found footage franchise expands on the first one's scope by being set in an affluent suburban house loaded to the gills with security cameras, which allows for maximum coverage of the horrible events that take place both two months before and just a bit after the first movie.
Paranormal Activity 3

Set 18 years prior to the events of the first two films, this installment seeks to figure out the origin of the demonic presence that haunts Katie and Kristi in their adult years.
Annabelle

Set in 1967, roughly four years before The Conjuring, this entry in the ever-expanding Conjuring Universe follows a doctor and his pregnant wife as they contend with the possessed doll we all love.
Annabelle: Creation

Set mostly in 1955, this movie tracks the actual origins of the evil doll and the spirit of the dead girl that inhabits her. The film is far superior to the first prequel, and has a tone not unlike The Devil's Backbone.
Ouija: Origin of Evil

After the financially-successful first movie got a beatdown from critics, director Mike Flanagan was basically given permission to do his own thing with this prequel set in the late-60's and shot using technology from that era. The result was a far more embraced movie with a very old school feel.
Insidious: Chapter 3

Set several years before the Lambert haunting of the first two films, this one follows psychic Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) as she aids a teenage girl who has been targeted by a dangerous supernatural entity.
Insidious: The Last Key

Elise and her cohorts Specs and Tucker investigate a haunting in a family home that was actually Elise's childhood home, and she confronts where her supernatural shenanigans all started.
The First Purge

In this film we get to see how the United States' period of 12 hours of annual lawlessness first came to be, and how it was designed to harm marginalized communities.