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."