10 Insulting Ways Characters Were Killed Off Between Horror Movies

The third spin-off in the Conjuring universe, 2018’s The Nun lacks the depth, ingenuity, and commendable scares not only of James Wans’ masterful first two Conjuring pictures but – to admittedly lesser degrees – of almost every other ancillary chapter in the franchise.

By no means a significantly complex or unique figure, Father Burke is a saving grace of The Nun due to his selflessness and wisdom in helping Sister Irene vanquish the series’ star villain – Valak – from a Romanian monastery in 1952. His resoluteness and empathy are crucial to the plot, as well as to making The Nun somewhat watchable.

Without a doubt, his partnership with Sister Irene should’ve been a major focal point of 2023’s marginally improved The Nun II. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen since Father Burke passed away of cholera sometime during the four-year interval separating the two stories.

Beyond being a bizarrely out of left field outcome, it’s also a mostly illogical one since cholera was largely eradicated worldwide in the late 1950s before picking up again during the seventh pandemic of the early 1960s

Some people have speculated that Father Burke contracted cholera because Valak cursed him or because he was weakened by his encounter with the demon. Neither explanation has been verified, though, and neither would prevent his off-screen fatality from being insulting anyway.