The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It — The Warrens Go To Trial
Ed and Lorraine Warren are back, and this time, The Curse of La Llorona director Michael Chaves is at the helm. Continuing the series’ usual hyperbolic recounting of “true” events, the franchise changes up the scenery, stepping out of the haunted house and into the courtroom, in its third installment of the Warren’s saga. The change of direction will likely rub some fans the wrong way, but The Devil Made Me Do It still manages to be a decently entertaining experience.
The film centers around one of the most sensational cases from the Warren’s files. What begins as a fight for the soul of a young boy takes them beyond anything they'd ever seen before: marking the first time in U.S. history that a murder suspect would claim demonic possession as a defense.
The Conjuring films have always heavily embellished the supernatural elements of the cases they’re based on, which generally build their central protagonists, Ed and Lorraine Warren, as more heroic and gifted figures than they really appear to be. This is pretty typical of most films, who choose not to honor reality in favor of entertainment value, and usually they’re all the better for it. The exaggerated narrative worked well in James Wan’s original The Conjuring, which blended two of the Warren’s cases into a surprisingly effective throwback haunted house/possession film, but it quickly grew stale (for us, anyways) with Wan’s sequel, which upped the ante to a somewhat inordinate degree while opting to deliver more of the same. With The Devil Made Me Do It, the franchise’s third entry to the Warren’s story, screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (who co-authored The Conjuring 2) and director Michael Chaves take the franchise out of the haunted house and into the courtroom, creating an outlandish investigative thriller that’s frustrating and entertaining in almost equal measure.
Depending on your individual outlook, you’ll either be OK with this switch-up or feel somewhat disappointed. Historically, horror fans have been notoriously rigid, quick to lambast a franchise or film that doesn’t just give them the same old slop, so we can already picture many heralding The Devil Made Me Do It as the weakest of the three primary Conjuring films. However, where many will see a slump, we see this a bit of welcomed (albeit deeply flawed) change. It’s still a ways away from restoring the franchise to the status of Wan’s original; however, its new slant keeps it from feeling too formulaic and stale, and (in our opinion), raises the mark left by its direct predecessor. Although its scares are scant and largely ineffective, the absurd rollercoaster ride it creates is enjoyably entertaining in ways that The Conjuring 2 wasn’t (to us). As it unravels more and more into over-the-top stupidity, we found ourselves continuously along for the ride, despite it’s logic flaws and weak writing.
The film opens pretty strong with the exorcism of young, eight-year-old David Glatzel (played by Greener Grass and Color Out Of Space’s Julian Hilliard), which quickly goes awry. The priest performing the exorcism is quickly incapacitated, along with the Warrens, and in a last-ditch effort to save young David’s soul, his sister’s boyfriend, Arne Cheyenne Johnson (Ruairi O'Connor), offers himself up as a conduit. The demonic entity obliges, and while things blow over briefly, a new supernatural storm quickly swirls up with Arne at the center. In an altercation with his landlord, Bruno, Arne winds up killing him, claiming he was under the influence of the devil. His legal counsel is skeptical initially, but the Warrens help sway his defense, making Arne’s case the first known court case in the United States in which the defense sought to prove innocence based upon the defendant's claim of demonic possession and denial of personal responsibility for the crime. In reality, the judge quickly dismissed this approach; however, the film takes creative liberties and sends the Warrens on a literal witch hunt.
While the actual court case is dubbed the "Devil Made Me Do It" case (which is where the title clearly comes from), the devil isn’t really to blame here. No, lurking in the shadows of the narrative is an elusive occultist (which the film refers to incorrectly as a satanist), who’s pulling the supernatural strings from an unknown location. One of the key problems with the film is how it fails to establish a motive, dismissing “satanists” as anarchists only interested in “creating chaos,” which is, of course, just a lazy way to avoid having to develop the villain (something the first Conjuring does splendidly). Visually, it’s very appealing, and closer to the throwback beauty of Wan’s original. Chaves and cinematographer Michael Burgess create a palpable atmosphere (filled occasionally with pointless nods to The Exorcist, Psycho, and The Shining), which is elevated by Leah Butler’s solid costumes and Jennifer Spence’s lovely production design. The direction is smooth and adequate, but it’s occasionally prone to logic flaws just as the writing is (like a cop driving PAST a man covered in blood, who is somehow shocked to find the man is covered in blood). This all just adds to the cheesy absurdity of it all, which helps to stifle its frequently uncompelling events with nuggets of (presumably unintentionally) comedy.
All things considered, it’s a decent installment to a horror franchise that’s consistently struggled to reach the heights of its first film. If The Devil Made Me Do It proves anything, it’s that Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are the heart and soul of the franchise. Without them, everything sinks and slumps, and while the franchise continues to fall off the rails, they stand as a solid constant.
Recommendation: It’s nothing groundbreaking or new, but if you’re a fan of the franchise or in need of something atmospheric and “spooky,” give The Conjuring 3 a day in court.
Rating: 2.5 cops who shouldn’t be as surprised as they are outta 5.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!