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Princesses or superheroes might be go-to children’s birthday themes, but one little girl had her heart set on something a bit darker: The Nun.
Three-year-old Lucia Brown shocked her mother, Laura Brown, when she said she wanted to highlight the 2018 horror flick at her third birthday party, according to Good Morning America. She asked to watch the film after catching a glimpse of the movie while at her grandmother’s house.
“[Lucia’s grandmother and her father] told her it wasn’t a cartoon, but she insisted,” Laura told GMA.
Later, the little girl told her mother of her plans for her birthday party.
“I kept asking her for months and the answer was always the same: ‘The Nun. The Nun. The Nun.’ I told her, ‘No way, you are going to choose Rapunzel.’ ”
The Nun stars Bonnie Aarons as the pale-faced, demonic force. The film is set in the ’50s and explores the origins of the inhuman spirit, also known as Valak, that tormented ghost-hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) in the 1977-set The Conjuring 2.
Eventually, the little girl got her wish.
Photos from the June 3 birthday party showed little Lucia dressed as Valak, with her painted face featuring white and black circles around her eyes. She ran, jumped and played in the costume, and even had a birthday cake featuring the character’s face.
“So it was my cousins (sic) 3rd birthday and instead of having a normal theme she chose this,” Andrea Villarreal tweeted alongside the photos on June 4. She added in a follow-up post: “And if anyone was wondering yes her friends also participated in the theme.”
The initial tweet quickly went viral. It was retweeted more than 138,000 times and even caught the attention of filmmaker, actor and comedian Jordan Peele. The Us and Get Out creator quote-tweeted the post and wrote, “Does she have a Godfather?”
Villarreal replied: “She does but he will forfeit the rights so we can hand them over to you.”
Lucia even drew kudos from Aarons herself, who tweeted, “Happy Birthday Lucia!!! HAPPY EVERY DAY!!”
The official Walking Dead account replied to the tweet with three black heart emoji.
Laura shared photos and videos from the party on Facebook, showing her sense of humor about the unique theme.
“Like when your daughter turns 3, and her favorite character is the nun,” she wrote in a Facebook post on June 4. “Everything is to see her happy!!!”
Villarreal, of San Antonio, Texas, told the San Antonio Express-News that the little girl’s parents were excited to make the spooky bash happen.
“Her parents did not question it at all. They were very supportive of her wanting this theme, especially because Lucia was very persistent,” Villarreal told the outlet. “They had to go out of their way to make the pinata and cake special for the occasion because as you can imagine, those aren’t popular requests.”
Villarreal added that Lucia doesn’t usually watch scary movies, so it came as a surprise that she took to The Nun.
“I know people see The Nun and get scared, but Lucia tells her mom that nun is protecting her,” she said.
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