The third installment in the much-celebrated ‘The Conjuring series’ along with the eighth film with the Conjuring Universe Horror Franchise-The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It-was made ready for release in September 2020, though the COVID-19 pandemic delayed it till June 2021 if it premiered in the US as well as on HBO Max simultaneously. Unfortunately, it could not be released in the Indian theatres again due to the pandemic. Since the HBO Max show-term was very short the Indian fans in the franchise are actually wondering where to watch the movie, considering the way they were thrilled and intrigued by the haunted-house stories of The Conjuring (2013) and The Conjuring-2 (2016) with the adored real-life pair of the paranormal investigators Ed Warren and Lorraine Warren, played brilliantly by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in all of the flicks from the trilogy plus one of the Conjuring Universe franchise movies. Finally. Amazon Prime Video started streaming this movie in the 15th of December 2021, and also the horror ‘fun’ originates roaring back in India.
As usual, the storyplot on this film too is based on a real-life court case three decades ago in which the murder accused, Arne Johnson, pleaded simple beneath the guise that ‘The Devil Made Him Do It’ while he claimed he was demonically possessed while committing the act; these kinds of defense plea is for initially inside the US court case history. Ed and Lorraine Warren testified for Arne as we were holding convinced in regards to the demonic possession and gave all their evidence with regards to captured camera images and videos. However, since this type of premise could have never the best basis, the accused was convicted and sentenced to 15-20 numerous years of imprisonment; but he got beyond jail in 5 years because of his exemplary behavior and that he married his girlfriend while still in jail. Dry court proceedings can’t ever be an apt subject for any suspense-horror flick and therefore, a fantastic storyline and a script was built across the case.
The film opens using the scariest scene with the movie and possibly one from the scariest scenes ever in horror cinema history. The scene depicts the exorcism of a young boy, maybe around 10 years of age, named David Glatzel with all the presence with the stricken family, Ed and Lorraine and also the exorcist. The chaotically horrifying developments that follow have to be watched than explained, with all the results that Ed gets hurt and it has a heart attack as the character of Arne Johnson (played by Ruairi O’Connor), boyfriend of David’s elder sister Debbie Glatzel (played by Sarah Catherine), looks into your eye area of the violent David and invites the demon to depart David and have him, which, incredibly enough, happens. To my experience of horror films this is the new twist because it raises some questions: it seems like to generate the role from the exorcists rather dubious which a demon or perhaps a ghost supposedly possesses someone which has a definite purpose therefore, why should it leave its prized victim! Anyway, it was necessary like a prologue for that reel-life Arne Johnson to take to murder someone and face trial.
As in comparison to the earlier absolutely absorbing and tension-filled two films in the trilogy the third one lacks a flow of storytelling which can be hampered by flashbacks, jerk-cuts and scenes left half-treated, jumping with other scenes after which coming back to the previous. This can be interpreted since the stylistic treatment of the director, however it does not help storytelling bearing in mind the viewers’ continued involvement. For example, Ed Warren who suffered a heart attack probably rested for around 30 days (not clearly indicated) when the demon in Arne preferred to do nothing atrocious. However, the minute Ed recovers which has a telepathic dream he communicates to Lorraine to warn the police about a impending tragedy inside house of Arne’s employer and landlord. And inevitably, Arne in a sudden burst of possessive fit murders the landlord which is arrested with the police.
Now comes the genuine turning point of the story: Lorraine, with her super intuitive and psychic powers visualizes a grim connection of the Arne’s act with all the murder and suicide of two area within the recent days. The police were yet to find the body of second girl who supposedly killed her friend in a fit from the same type of demonic possession after which committed suicide. So, for the very first time in the history in the trilogy law enforcement join the investigations with the paranormal help of Ed and Lorraine, ultimately finding the submerged body with the second girl as Lorraine leads them through a dramatically crafted and a light-n-shadow scene, eminently worth watching.
With the ‘connection’ confirmed, Lorraine and Ed revisit the house of David, and Lorraine discovers a witch’s totem in the underground chambers in the house, stuffed with rats. The angle in the occult practices are available in here, again for the very first time, and Lorraine, convinced that the bond works either way in fact it is within the process of completing a curse implying more murders, starts the hunt for your source with the evil-if it had been an evil spirit or even a devilish person with supernatural powers needs to be avoided here, lest it might be a spoiler. While the 1st half of the film is very engaging and tension-filled the second half becomes rather predictable. The climax, unfortunately, does not shock-thrill the viewers.
But the film is immensely worth watching because of the intense performances, as usual, with the couple, Wilson and Farmiga, along with the jump-scares that come you should definitely expected , nor come when expected, keeping the viewers guessing, particularly a scarily delightful scene of David jumping over a bubbling mattress just as if filled with water and after that something unexpected happening to him. The sequel, different from your other two as pointed out, reminds us of an brilliant South Korean horror-mystery-suspense flick ‘The Wailing’ of which we wrote about recently.
‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’ is just not directed by James Wan who created the Conjuring Universe horror franchise regarding his Atomic Monster Productions and New Line Cinema of Warner Bros Entertainment thus completing the 20-year efforts led by Tony DeRosa-Grund and his awesome team to produce a number of films about the supernatural case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, and directing the first movie in the franchise ‘The Conjuring’ in 2013. Huge commercial success with the first venture resulted in productions of supernatural horror sequels and prequels one after the opposite: Annabelle in 2014, The Conjuring-2 in 2016, Annabelle Creation in 2017, The Nun in 2018, The Curse of La Llorona in 2019, Annabelle Comes Home in 2019 and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It in 2021; the past is directed by Michael Chaves who made his directorial debut using a franchise film, ‘The Curse of La Llorona’. The Conjuring Universe has become the other highest-grossing horror franchise in Hollywood background one in the most critically acclaimed. Almost all of the eight films have been huge commercial hits throughout the world with positive to mixed reviews. The franchise are at as soon as focusing on two more horror films-the first being titled ‘The Crooked Man’ as well as the second film’s title, stated to be a sequel to ‘The Nun’, is to be announced.
Chinmay Chakravarty is often a professional specialized within the creative field with twenty years of experience in journalistic writing, media co-ordination, film script writing, film dubbing, film & video making, control over international film festivals and editing of books & journals. Proficient in providing professional services over these related fields. Was a police officer of Indian Information Service and superannuated through the post of Director, Press Information Bureau, Kolkata in November, 2019. Published his first solo book ‘Laugh and Let Laugh’ in 2017 and his second book ‘The Cheerless Chauffeur and Other Tales’ in 2021.