The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
AKA The Conjuring 3
(2021) 112 min
Rated: R (blood, gore)
Country: USA
Director: Michael Chaves
Starring: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ruairi O’Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, Julian Hilliard
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★★☆☆
The Warrens encounter a case of demonic possession that leads to murder.
Synopsis:
In 1981, eight year old David Glatzel (Hilliard) is possessed by a demon. Ed and Lorraine Warren (Wilson and Farmiga) are at the Glatzel household to document the exorcism.
David sees himself covered in blood and while possessed, stabs his father in the leg with a glass shard. The family decides to do the exorcism ritual on the dinner table.
David twist and turns in unnatural shapes while screaming and being held down by family members. Ed and Lorraine also help to hold the boy down.
Father Gordon arrives and attempts to recite the exorcism ritual but gets hit in the head by a flying plate. Ed tries to take over in the recitation, but is pushed down by the demon and starts to have a heart attack.
Arne Johnson (O’Connor), the boyfriend of David’s sister Debbie (Hook), Asks the demon to enter him, rather than picking a small child. All goes calm as the demon seemingly enters Arne.
Ed is taken to the hospital and has a stint placed in an artery of his heart.
Later, everything is seemingly fine, but Arne is getting attacked by a woman in black every so often. Ed, meanwhile, wakes from his hospital bed and tells Lorraine that Arne asked the demon to enter him.
Arne and Debbie live in the house of Bruno Sauls who runs a dog kennel that Debbie works at in exchange for living there with Arne.
Lorraine attempts to call the kennel, but Bruno is playing his music very loud. Arne, whose mind is clouded by the demonic possession, sees Bruno as a monster hurting Debbie. He pulls her away from Bruno and proceeds to stab Bruno to death with a pocket knife.
A cop is dispatched to check on Bruno’s home. The policeman finds Arne calmly walking along the road covered in blood and disorientated.
In jail, Ed and Lorraine test Arne by having him read scripture. He is not currently possessed by a demon, but Ed believes that he may have been at the time the murder took place.
The Warrens convince a lawyer to plead Arne’s case was not his fault because of his demonic possession at the time the murder was committed. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty so the lawyer pleads with the Warrens to assist in finding evidence of demonic possession that can convince a jury that Arne was possessed.
Lorraine feels that they missed something in the original demonic case with David and decided to investigate. They review tapes and recall that the family first observed David’s demonic possession five months earlier when they first bought the home they lived in.
David was playing on a waterbed while a corpse-like hand pops through the watery mattress and grabs him. He’s terrified and wet. He recalls thee event as being dreamlike.
The Warrens check the house and find a dark stain where the bed was. Lorraine crawls into their crawlspace and finds a “witch’s totem” made of bones right where the bed was. They ask Debbie to tell the police who will check to see if they see similar totems.
They meet up with a an ex-priest named Father Kastner who had studied the Disciples of the Ram cult. The Warrens see that Kastner has a collection of artifacts not unlike their own. He tell them that a cult member intentionally left the totem to curse the family of David.
A cop in Danvers, Massachusetts has seen the same totem. They found it in relation to the death of Katie Lincoln and her missing friend Jessica. The Warrens travel there and Lorraine helps the police with her psychic ability to see that Jessica was possessed and murdered Katie before jumping off a cliff. Lorraine herself almost falls off the cliff, but Ed saves her.
The police recover the body of the once-possessed Jessica. While the morgue is closed, Ed and Lorraine break in and Lorraine touches Jessica’s hand to see visions of the occultist using her magic to attempt to make Arne commit suicide. She screams for the cultist to stop and is told that the connection works both ways. Meanwhile, Ed narrowly avoids being attacked by a large corpse controlled by the occultist.
The Warrens return home and find that they’ve been cursed as well, as they find a totem hidden in a vase of flowers. Drew, their assistant, tells the Warrens that in order for the totem curse to be lifted, the altar must be destroyed.
Lorraine goes to Father Kastner for help and he reveals that he had a daughter named Isla. During his study of the occult it seems that Isla grew fascinated by it and he lost her to it. Kastner shows Lorraine the secret passage where the alter is located.
As Lorraine explores the tunnels, Isla murders Kastner. Ed Warren finds his way into the tunnels and gets possessed by a demon. He attempts to kill Lorraine but she pleads with him to remember his love for her and how powerful it is. That briefly breaks the possession and he manages to hit the altar with a sledgehammer destroying the curse.
Isla arrives and attempts to approach the Warrens, but the demon kills her after she fails to produce a soul to satisfy her end of a bargain.
Meanwhile, during this time, Arne was possessed by a demon and almost cuts his own throat with a shard of glass. As Ed broke the alter, this also ceased Arne’s possession.
There is a brief epilogue that covers how Arne served five years for manslaughter in prison and ended up marrying Debbie. Ed Warren gifts Lorraine a gazebo that is a replica of the one in which they first kissed.
Review:
This is another entry into the Conjuring series of films. It has both Wilson and Farmiga reprising their roles as the Warrens.
Having seen the other films, this one feels like one of the weaker ones. It has jumpscares peppered throughout to keep the audience semi-invested but it plods along at a somewhat slow pace and delves deeply into drama that lacks excitement.
It does provide a somewhat chilling atmosphere and is entertaining in its story. There are some silly moments like the Warrens on the cliff and getting attacked in the climax.
Despite the negatives the movie is worth a watch for fans of the series as it’s not dull. For newcomers, the original Conjuring movie is far more entertaining.
This film is very loosely based on events that involved Arne Cheyenne Johnson.