The grandson of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the paranormal investigators who inspired the Conjuring movies, is revealing his reaction to the news that comedian Matt Rife had purchased the Warrens’ home and guardianship of their spooky objects, including the infamous Annabelle doll.
Chris McKinnell, son of the Warrens’ daughter, Judy Spera, said matter-of-factly on the Reel Appreciation podcast, “I’d never even heard of him until he bought it. I didn’t know who he was.”
For the uninitiated, Rife is a standup comic and actor with multiple comedy specials under his belt, including Netflix’s Natural Selection and Lucid. He’s also a big fan of paranormal stuff and the Conjuring films, and announced in August that he’d bought the Warrens’ home, which doubles as an occult museum.
That made him, Rife said, “the legal guardian for at least the next 5 years, of the [Warrens’] entire haunted collection including THE ANNABELLE DOLL.”
A representative for Rife didn’t immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly‘s request for comment Monday.
McKinnell didn’t specifically have more to say about Rife on the podcast, but instead revealed that he’s “far more concerned” about his mother’s husband, Tony Spera, “allowing things out on tour” from his grandparents’ archive of paranormal objects, which Rife is now the guardian of. Judy and Tony Spera run the New England Society for Psychic Research, which was founded by the Warrens and seeks to carry “on the exploration and investigation of paranormal and demonic entities,” per its website.
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EW has reached out to the Speras at the NESPR for comment.
McKinnell said his stepfather is “an entertainer” who has never worked a paranormal case. Despite that, he said it’s “ironic” that he is a character in the most recent Conjuring film, The Conjuring: Last Rites. (Tony, who also served as a consultant on the first two Conjuring films, is played by Ben Hardy in the final movie in the hit horror franchise.)
Giles Keyte/Warner Bros.
“I was willing to allow him to do that and just live his moment, for my mother’s sake,” McKinnell said. “But then he started wanting to bring this thing on tour, and that to me was so dangerous, such a betrayal of everything my grandparents spent their lives doing.”
He continued, “One of the worst parts of my grandparents’ legacy is that my grandfather ever made the mistake of calling it a museum. It was never open to the public. That’s a misconception. It was always by special invitation, one or two people, very small groups with specific instructions — don’t touch anything, don’t treat anything with misrespect, do not try to communicate with anything.”
And yet, McKinnell said, “What are they doing now? They’re doing TikTok videos where they’re talking to these things. They’re trying to communicate with these things.” He added, “To me, that place is the Chernobyl of the paranormal, and it bothers me to no end what can happen.”
Watch McKinnell on Reel Appreciation above.
