See ‘Conjuring’ Demonologist Vera Farmiga Nail Slipknot’s Demon Voice in ‘Duality’ Cover

After three Conjuring movies, Vera Farmiga knows what a demon should sound like, so it’s no surprise that when she tackled singing Slipknot’s “Duality” at a Rock Academy gig in Kingston, New York, she easily matched Corey Taylor growl for growl.

She praised the music program and thanked the musicians before introing the song. “I heard that we’re talking at 106 decibels so we’re just gonna simmer it down right now,” she told the crowd. “This is for all the chin pressers, all the eye pushers, the skin scratchers, the teeth grinders, anyone who’s trying to cope.”

After whispering the intro, she fell right into Taylor’s ominous verse melody. When the beat kicked in, she headbanged and hung her hair like a weeping willow before rapping and growling, “I push my fingers into my eyes.” Her eyes burn fire by the time she growled the “fingers” line again a cappella in the song’s breakdown. It’s a loose, bilious performance worthy of a Conjuring villain; all she was lacking was one of Taylor’s freaky crash test dummy masks.

“Best. Music. School. On. The. Planet,” she wrote on Instagram, tagging Rock Academy. “Enroll your kids now. And why let them have all the fun?! Enroll yourselves! Come learn. Come grow. Come play. Come have so much fun.”

Taylor explained the inspiration behind “Duality,” a single off Slipknot’s 2004 album, Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses), in an MTV News interview from that year. “Did you ever get that headache that is just not going to go away, and you end up sticking your thumb and middle finger so far into your eyes, just to stop the pain?” he said. “It usually has to do with making a choice. You get to that point in everyday life when you have to make a decision that you may not want to, but you’re kind of pushed into that position. ‘Duality’ is about standing at the crossroads of your life, looking down both paths, and going, ‘Now what am I going to do?'”