The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It: Film Review

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, John Noble

Director: Michael Chaves

The Conjuring returns, with perhaps a final look at the investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren, but once again, seemingly based on a true story.

Following an apparently successful exorcism of an 8-year-old boy David Glatzel in Brookfield in middle America in late 1981, the Warrens are in pieces. Ed (Wilson) is in hospital following a massive heart-attack instigated by the demonic spirit and Vera Farmiga's Lorraine's broken by events. 

When Ed wakes and says he saw the spirit pass from David into family friend Arne Johnson, the hunt is on to stop the spirit killing. However, it's too late - and in apparently devil-motivated attack, Johnson stabs his landlord to death 22 times.

Facing the death penalty, the Warrens vow to clear Johnson's name, and prove malignant spirits were involved....But the Warrens are warned this will be their most difficult case yet, and could bring a massive personal toll.

The Devil Made Me Do It may be a well-orchestrated series of set pieces leading to the usual overblown, sound and bluster-fuelled finale, but it seems content to amble through the story rather than jolt along the audience throughout.

There’s a finite feel to this latest Conjuring which seems to put to bed the Warrens’ escapades, and certainly there’s more of a grounding this time around of the pair, dialling up the sentiment of their relationship and cementing the usual message of love triumphing over evil.

Both Wilson and Farmiga work well in their respective roles, with an earnestness that lies the foundation to their relationship feeling real and genuinely threatened at times; this is a Conjuring about personal stakes and one about the toll years of investigations can have.

But director Michael Chaves (The Curse of La  Llorona) never really loses sight of the fact these films are nothing more than funhouse rides, with constructed and expected beats to hit. There’s no shortage of them this time around, but in places, the film feels almost formulaic, and almost anachronistic at times.

(And the less said about the aspirational framing of a priest getting out of a car and walking toward a house, perhaps the better.)

However, The Conjuring series - and it’s subsequent cinematic universe spinoffs - has never been shy about what it wants -a few frights and a popcorn feel. Thrown into the mix this time around is a CSI: Conjuring feel as the two investigators become detectives trying to solve another missing person's case as well as prevent the death row murder of Arne Johnson.

Throwing into the mix the 80s fear of Satanic Panic, as well as dour browns and gloomily-lit corridors and houses (and a great performance from a fallen priest played by John Noble), the film easily fulfills its raison d'etre of creepy, eerie moments that build to something.a You can't go wrong with kids being menaced by spirits and the throwing in of an all-American-apple-pie family seems an easy winner too.

Perhaps the 8th time is less of a charm, given how many spinoffs exist in this Universe, and the scares are a little more of the psychological bent as well, but The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It feels less fresh this time around, even if it is solidly and formulaically executed.