The main setting of the Enfield haunting is a modest home inhabited by an impoverished single mother who has to raise her four young children by herself because her ex-husband has founded another family elsewhere. She doesn't have money to fix a broken pipe which floods the entire basement, a potential drowning hazard for the smaller children. Because of the stress she has to face, Peggy began to smoke; it is implied that this habit has a hand in almost causing Janet to also take up the cigars, which is not much better. Plus, one of her children has a stutter that brands him a laughing stock at school. Does Peggy require anymore stress put on her? Why, yes, the haunting will do.
Valak, the aptly named "Demon Nun". She takes Nuns Are Spooky to the power of eleven.
For those too afraid to see her, she has bluish-white skin, a cadaver makeup, and yellow eyes. As a nun, she wears an all-black habit. Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette much? Just imagine seeing someone like her.
And then her teeth. MOTHER OF GOD, HER FUCKING TEETH!
There's the fact that she's actually a demon, underlined. She's unlike Bathsheba or Bill Wilkins, who are both ghosts, A.K.A. humans who died and became restless spirits. A demon. A being not from this world. And for this reason, she can't be vanquished completely.
Her appearance in the Warrens' home has her looming ominously at the far corner of a narrow corridor. And the first one to discover her is a young girl. This is a little close to earth for those who have experienced home invasions. Sure, it turns out to be a part of Lorraine's Nightmare Sequence, but the point still stands.
She is not just resistant to crosses, she actually makes them her personal toys by flipping them upside down! Imagine telling that to someone who holds holy objects in high regard because they think that they would protect them from undesirable things.
She doesn't have any discernible motive for terrorizing humans. Is it because Janet used the Ouija board? Is she mad that Ed and Lorraine are banishing evil spirits? Is she interested in Lorraine because of her powers? Why does she have the need to control a lost ghost to do her bidding? Whatever it, is, the movie never reveals it. Paranoia Fuel ensues.
And then there's the creepiest part about Valak that's more Fridge Horror. Valak is only a demon. Think on what that means. He's only a demon.
Only a demon, but also a powerful one. In the Ars Goetia, Valak commands thirty legions of demons and rules as the Great President of Hell. So while he's not just a demon, he's not the only demon. And he's not the most powerful being in Hell by far.
One of the first scares of the movie: When Billy pushes a toy fire truck back into his tent, only to have it come back to him outside his bedroom door. He pushes it back into the tent again, to which it quickly gets pushed back out. Before he or the audience even has time to process what happened, a man's deafening scream comes from the tent, terrifying both Billy and the audience. If we didn't already know this was a Haunted House movie, we'd probably think someone broke into the house, and was hiding in the tent.
As well as that, earlier in the scene, as Billy walks down the hall to get back to his room, he passes the living room, where Bill makes his first appearance sitting in the chair in a blink-or-you'll-miss-it moment, and Billy completely misses it.
When the TV starts messing up when Janet is trying to watch it, she begins fiddling with it to get the picture back, only to have it turn off completely, revealing an old man sitting in the chair behind her, in the screen's reflection. Just when you think the scene is done, he suddenly appears behind her and shouts "MY HOUSE!".
You probably didn't think the famous Christmas tune "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" could be creepy, but after this movie, you'll probably never want to hear that song again, holiday or not.
Bill Wilkins' fate. As if dying alone in a chair from a brain hemorrhage and becoming a ghost wasn't depressing enough, his spirit becomes enslaved by a freaking demon, unable to pass on to the afterlife even though he wants to, tortured and forced to torment an innocent family, with virtually no way of asking for help or freeing yourself from the demon's control. A Fate Worse than Death indeed.
The chair. It's just a simple brown chair that sits in the corner of the living room that was bought along with the house. It's only a little creepy at first because Bill Wilkins died while sitting in that chair. But there's one little note in the end that makes it way more ominous than it already was, or really should be. Despite what happened to them, Peggy and her family continued to live in the house, all the way up to Peggy's death. And according to the note, Peggy died sitting on that same chair.
Valak's "Crooked Man" form. A Burtonesque nightmare that first emerges in a manner not unlike the kennel scene from The Thing (1982) and proceeds to chase down the youngest Hodgson child while chanting a twisted version of the nursery rhyme it was inspired by.
The opening at the Amityville house. Especially when Vision!Lorraine acts out shooting each of the victims; they don't actually get shot, they just immediately snap to being bloody corpses.
Bill speaking though Janet is honestly a creepy scene (unless you find it too narmy).
Billy and the Crooked Man. Especially since it doesn't even take place in the Hodgson's house.
