The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
I must confess that I'm not much of a fan of the The Conjuring series. In theory, these movies should be scary, but they don't quite work for me. The only thing that stood out for me were the leads - demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren - and that relationship has now been tainted by some very disturbing accusations. Yes, The Conjuring series is a work of fiction, but still. Despite everything, I decided to give The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) a try. Since I'm writing a review, it's clear it didn't go well... Warning: SPOILERS.
The plot is promising: there's someone going around summoning demons and cursing people and only demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren can stop them! It all begins with the exorcism of an 8 year old boy, David Glatzel. He's been exhibiting some very strange behaviour, though apparently not strange enough that his sister's boyfriend, Arne, can't take him to his room alone and stay there chatting about whether he's planning to propose to Debbie while they all wait for the priest. This is a very well behaved evil demon... until David suddenly starts hallucinating, stabs his father, and it's time for an emergency exorcism. Hmm, why was Arne left alone with him? Do the Glatzels secretly hate him or something? I probably should've mentioned that the Warrens were already at the house, waiting for the Church to approve the exorcism. It does and the priest arrives just in time. This is not a good exorcism. The most impressive bit is when the demon starts twisting David's body like a demented contortionist. The rest is the usual hellish wind, telekinetically pushing people away, and mean comments, which aren't remotely scary because the movie decided to use the child actor's voice (or at least didn't change it much). The end result was almost comical at times. The only important bits are: Arne gets possessed after offering to take David's place; Ed has a demonically-induced heart attack; and Lorraine has a vision of someone performing a black magic ritual while she's touching David. The movie played a recording of the "real" exorcism over the end credits and it sounded so fake. No, I never thought it could be real, but I at least expected it to not be that obvious.
Unfortunately, only Ed saw Arne being possessed and he ended up in a coma, so Arne is now walking around experiencing some mild supernatural phenomena. What's wrong with this demon? Not only does it take forever to gain control over its vessel, but it also seems extremely weak. Meanwhile, devoted wife Lorraine sits at her husband's bedside and tells the priest the sweet story of how they met. Yeah, that doesn't look so sweet after hearing the accusations against the real Warrens. I don't know if it's true, but it's still weird. When Ed finally wakes up, he immediately tells Lorraine about Arne and the demon. After trying unsuccessfully to contact the Glatzels, she calls the police and warns them that something bad is going to happen with Arne. Naturally, after not doing anything for ages, the demon chooses this precise moment to make him stab Debbie's drunk boss to death. Wow, great timing everyone! The recreation of the real-life murder case that inspired this movie somehow manages to make the victim seem way less threatening than he was. I only googled about it after watching this, so I was expecting Arne to kill Debbie, too. The end result was surprisingly tame by demonic standards.
After Arne is arrested, the Warrens examine him and conclude he's no longer possessed. Well, that's awkward. Yet, this doesn't stop them from convincing his lawyer to plea not guilty due to demonic possession by giving her a tour of their evil artifact collection (off-screen), which of course, includes Annabelle. Ironically, the mere mention of the creepy doll is spookier than this whole movie. Now that they're trying to help Arne, Ed and Lorraine start doing all the research they should've already done when they were dealing with David's possession. Why don't they already know when he started acting weird and why haven't they already done a thorough search of the house? This makes no sense! And who thought it was a good idea to have the demon come out of a water bed? That was ridiculous. And ridiculous isn't the mood you want for a horror movie. Anyway, while doing what they should've done the first time, the Warrens find a witches totem in the crawl space under the house and the priest that performed David's exorcism suggests that the Warrens take the totem to the now retired Father Kastner, who famously took down the evil Disciples of the Ram. That sounds like it would make for a much more interesting movie than this crap. Kastner has his own collection of evil artifacts, which gives Lorraine bad vibes, and tries to convince them to forget the whole thing because it's too dangerous. Turns out the totem was left intentionally by an occultist to curse David. If you're wondering what enemies could the Glatzels possibly have, don't bother - The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It has much loftier aspirations than a mere vendetta against a suburban family. According to Kastner, all Satanists want is to create chaos, so there's no point in looking for a reason. Well, I can't wait to see how much chaos this Satanist will cause with their unimaginative, weak, nameless pet demon.
Arne hallucinates in jail and during visitation hour, David guesses he's possessed again. Meanwhile, the Warrens' assistant, Drew, found a detective dealing with a similarly witchy case. A girl, Katie, was found dead, and her friend Jessica disappeared. And Jessica so happens to have had a witches totem, too. The detective is initially sceptical, but Lorraine dazzles him with her psychic powers. She has a vision about Katie's murder - it was Jessica! - and helps the police find the missing girl's body in the bottom of a lake. So far, all this feels disconnected and random. There's also something about the characters that makes it hard to connect with them. I should care about Arne, but I don't. The demon has been telling him to commit suicide, and the Warrens tell Debbie to tell the prison chaplain, who gets him put on suicide watch and gives him a bottle of holy water... which will come in handy when the demon makes its vessel break it and use the shards to cut his wrist. The fact that holy water doesn't seem to have the usual effect is never explained or even noticed. Since Lorraine thinks she can find the occultist if she holds dead Jessica's hand, the Warrens break into the funeral home. Predictably, the occultist makes good use of the resources at hand and creates a zombie to attack the Warrens. Also predictably, the connection works both ways. So, while Lorraine gets to see the occultist's underground lair, the occultist now knows they're after her. This means they should be very careful about what strange objects they bring into their home. Like, say, a flower vase big enough to fit a witches totem. But before Ed gets temporarily possessed and tries to kill Lorraine, Drew shows them a book that has a ritual involving a murder-suicide that fits what they've been experiencing. Unfortunately, they can't translate it. While Lorraine takes the book to Kastner, Drew and a demon-free Ed find out Jessica got her totem at her university, which happens to be near the Glatzels' home. Was the Satanist handing out those things? Or maybe she was running an arts and crafts workshop and tricked the participants to make magical cursed artifacts? We'll never know. Even so, at this point, there was still time for the movie to come up with a satisfying solution for its plot - it didn't.
Kastner explains the ritual to Lorraine. It needs three very specific victims with symbolic value. He also reveals that he has a secret daughter who became fascinated with the occult thanks to his studies. This is just so fucking convoluted. And what does the secret occultist daughter of the character we've barely spent any time with prior to this wants? To finish the ritual and give that demon she keeps summoning a soul for his troubles. Why? No one knows. Really, the movie never bothers to give its villain any proper motivation. And no, the whole Satanists want to cause chaos thing doesn't cover it. Since Secret Occultist Daughter chose a specific ritual, there must be a reason for it. Regardless of her motive, the only way to stop her is to destroy her altar. And where is the altar? Under Kastner's house, obviously. Lorraine escapes into the tunnels just in time, as Secret Occultist Daughter turns out to be in the house right now! Well, this should be an interesting confrontation between father and daughter and an opportunity to give the nameless villain some depth... or she can just slit his throat. Hmm, why did she wait this long to do it? Her father wasn't getting any visitors, so it's not as if anyone would've noticed if he had disappeared. And why did she build her evil lair under the house of the only person who knew her identity and how to stop her? If she had been doing this in another state, Kastner would never have known. Hell, if she hadn't gone after Arne, the Warrens wouldn't even have found the totem and realized there was someone cursing people. Luckily for Lorraine, Ed figured out the occultist is near the river and apparently the only place there where she could possibly be is Kastner's place. That didn't make much sense, but it's time to move the plot along and finally get to the final confrontation, so... And how could the movie screw that up? Why, by constantly switching between the Warrens + Secret Occultist Daughter and Arne being exorcised in the prison infirmary by the same wimpy chaplain who gave him the holy water with Debbie by his side, naturally. Expect lots of demonic wind because this nameless demon isn't very creative.
In the tunnels, Secret Occultist Daughter messes with the Warrens' minds because apparently she has normal magical powers now and doesn't need to perform intricate rituals anymore. So, while Ed and Lorraine reenact that sequence from X2 in which a mind-controlled Cyclops attacked Jean with a hammer instead of optical blasts, Arne writhes around and occasionally floats. Still, it's a good thing Ed had a hammer, because that evil altar was pretty sturdy. With the altar gone, the demon leaves Arne and returns to claim his payment. This is bad news for Secret Occultist Daughter, who not only loses her soul, but gets her bones snapped. At least they could've given her a proper villain monologue. Sadly, she remained as personality free as her demon. All this doesn't stop Arne from being found guilty. Wait, didn't anyone at the prison saw the exorcism? Weren't there any security cameras? You can't just have an exorcism with visible supernatural activity in a more public place and then pretend no one saw it. This is just dumb.
The movie informs the audience that the real Arne only served 5 years, married Debbie in jail, and they're still together. Is this supposed to be uplifting? Because the real Arne was neither possessed nor the victim of some vaguely defined one woman conspiracy. With the previous movies it was easy to just roll my eyes at the implication that the Warrens were the real deal. But this one involves a real-life murder. Given how much it was added to the story, why not create a whole cast of fictional characters to interact with the Warrens? Maybe then the filmmakers could've come up with a proper satanist plot.
VERDICT
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It wastes a good premise. The characters are underdeveloped and the movie rushes through the usual demonic activity. A possession movie lives or dies by its demon, and this one has zero personality. The random targets should've made things scarier - it can happen to anyone! - but then it stopped with Arne. Before that, David's possession is already underway when the movie starts and Jessica is only seen briefly in Lorraine's vision halfway through it. Who cares if Kastner's daughter is the bad guy? We just met him, FFS. This is a dull, convoluted mess, with few scares.
By Danforth
(Note: this review was originally published in The Snarky Cats of Ulthar blog in May 2023, but since I've now reviewed some of the spin-offs, I thought it was better to post it here, too)