James Wan’s 2013 haunted house spine-tingler The Conjuring kick-started a $1 billion horror franchise — one of the most lucrative and popular series in recent history. Digging into the sensational case files of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, the director dialed up the dread with a thrilling command of atmosphere, a bewitching bag of ‘70s-style practical effects, a balance of familiar tropes with the power of suggestion and an attention to character that’s too often lacking in the genre. His sequel jumped from New England to working-class North London and remained mostly effective by making us care about the family in peril and share the anxieties of the compassionate couple who come to their aid.
But even in that 2016 follow-up, relative narrative simplicity had begun to cede ground to chaotic clutter, a weakness that steadily hobbles the third entry after a promising start that will have you jumping out of your seat.
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
The Bottom Line More self-possession required.
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is the seventh film in the “Conjuring Universe,” and regrettably, it takes its cue not from the predecessors with which it shares a title but from the less sophisticated spinoffs — the three Annabelle movies and The Nun. Like those films, this one offers plenty of lurid fun and some genuine scares. But the grounding in dark spirituality that made the previous entries focused on the Warrens so compelling gets diluted, despite the reliably dignifying double-act of Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson.
Part of that seems due to Wan handing off directing reins to Michael Chaves, whose feature debut, The Curse of La Llorona, was tenuously connected to the Conjuring world though with none of the nuance. An even bigger issue is the work of solo screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who collaborated with Wan on The Conjuring 2 and Aquaman. While Wan shares a story credit, the absence of original scripters Chad and Carey W. Hayes is felt in the failure to build out the plot from a solid center.
The powerful emotional bond between Ed and Lorraine, and the united integrity they bring to their fight against evil have always been the heart of the Conjuring movies. Here, that element is spelled out in a sentimental flashback to the origins of their romance, echoed later in syrupy dialogue about dark forces believing love is their weakness when it’s their strength. Johnson-McGoldrick keeps hurrying Ed and Lorraine off on increasingly murky supernatural tangents, resulting in too many busy elements fighting for attention. By the time they pin down the source of all the evil — think the farmer’s wife from Grant Wood’s American Gothic with a hint of Geraldine Chaplin — the movie has spiraled into silly excess.
That’s too bad, because the opening sequence is a ripper. It’s 1981 and the Warrens have been called to document the exorcism of 8-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard). The officiating priest (Steve Coulter) arrives just in time to witness the kid going full-tilt Regan, calling for an urgent intervention on the kitchen table. Accompanied by the nerve-shredding roar of Joseph Bishara’s score and some tasty visual homages to the William Friedkin classic, the scene is an assault on the senses that induces a major heart attack in Ed as the inhuman spirit jumps from David to his older sister’s boyfriend, Arne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor).
Oddly, only Ed seems to have noticed that transference and by the time he regains consciousness in hospital, it’s too late to warn anyone about Arne, whose sleep has been troubled and his waking hours plagued by startling visions. At the boarding kennels where Arne’s girlfriend Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook) works, Blondie’s “Call Me” blasts from the stereo and the dogs are barking like hellhounds as Arne loses control. Soon after, he’s found by a cop wandering along the road drenched in blood, muttering, “I think I hurt someone.” With the support of the Warrens, his case becomes the first American murder trial to claim demonic possession as a defense.
So far so blood-curdlingly good. But the deeper the Warrens delve into the history of David Glatzel’s possession and similar mysteries connecting back to a satanic curse passed on through macabre totems and the home-furnishing felony of the water bed, the more contrived Johnson-McGoldrick’s screenplay becomes. While the fictional developments reportedly are composites of actual interactions Lorraine Warren had over the years, the pile-up of supernatural mayhem becomes numbingly preposterous.
Ed’s medical condition sidelines Wilson from the physical action for much of the running time, making Lorraine’s clairvoyant gifts the investigative key, more so than in earlier installments. Watching Farmiga front and center is always rewarding, though as Lorraine drifts in and out of all-too-real visions of evil in her matronly blouses and headmistress hairdo, she starts to seem like a psychic Miss Marple. (It’s admirable that costumer Leah Butler honors the real Lorraine’s personal style, but it seems unfair to mortify Farmiga with flouncy frills while Wilson’s Ed gets groovy retro polo shirts and flattering dad suits.)
The movie starts seriously going over the edge when Ed and Lorraine break into a morgue at night and find themselves in reanimated company. Revelations concerning a retired priest known for his occult research (John Noble) tip it even further into overwrought genre bunkum. Are we really still doing horror movies where someone flips through a Renaissance witchcraft text and says something dumb like, “My Latin is rusty?”
Through all this, Arne seems frequently forgotten — a shame, since lean and haunted O’Connor has a striking screen presence. Arne languishes in a prison right out of the Ryan Murphy school of stylistic overstatement, ravaged from within and regularly rattled as the originator of the curse gets closer to claiming his life. I did chuckle at one ghoulish manifestation sitting up in the medical ward droning Blondie lyrics at him. But Arne’s big levitation finale competes with The Ed and Lorraine Show across town, sapping the tension from both. It doesn’t enhance the gravity to have confused Debbie ask, Scary Movie-style, “Honey, what are you doing?” as Arne spider-walks off the bed in rubber-limbed contortions amid a storm of flying debris.
In terms of craftsmanship, The Devil Made Me Do It is certainly slick. DP Michael Burgess’ camera adopts unnerving angles and prowls insidiously through one sepulchral-looking space after another, and the groaning soundscape works in tandem with Bishara’s big scary-ass score to creep under the audience’s skin. But the palpitating storytelling loses its way while trying to do the same.
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June 01, 2021 at 11:02PM
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‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’: Film Review - Hollywood Reporter
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