The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It
Director: Michael Chaves
Writer: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick
Based on: a case from Ed and Lorraine Warren
Sequel to: The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2
Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ruairi O’Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, Julian Hilliard, John Noble, Eugenie Bondurant, Shannon Kook
Part of: SLASH 1/2 Festival
Seen on: 20.6.2021
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Content Note: homomisia

Plot:
Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) are supposed to accompany an exorcism of a little boy, David (Julian Hilliard). But as they work on him, things start going very wrong, Lorraine gets odd visions and finally David’s brother-in-law Arne (Ruairi O’Connor) asks the spirit to leave David alone and possess himself instead. Things calm down after that, but Arne’s troubles only just begin.

I have to admit that I expected a little more of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, but it isn’t quite as good as the first two films – especially regarding Ed and Lorraine.

The first two Conjuring movies are definitely scary and good horror movies, but what made me really love them apart from that is the relationship between Ed and Lorraine that I find pretty much ideal (considering that they are cishet, catholic demon hunters). Wilson and Farmiga have perfect chemistry and it just works. And it’s exactly this part that fell pretty flat for me in this one. I mean, they still play the angle, but it feels too much, not authentic.

Plus, there is literally a moment where it is proclaimed that “our love is our strength”. This is in itself a little trite, but ok. What makes it less than okay, though, is that ultimately the only couple who dies, is queer (which I was first really excited about – that there is a queer couple in the first place). Given that it is love that lets the other couple survive, there is an undercurrent of “well, queer love just isn’t strong enough” to it that really isn’t okay.

Add to that that the story just doesn’t really make sense if you look at it more closely (there a three specific sacrifices needed, but who is who? And how did they know that David would be the first to enter the room where he gets possessed in the first place?), and I had a really hard time getting into the film.

It’s not badly made and it does have some nice moments, but it rally made me wish that James Wan would come back to the series.

Summarizing: Disappointing.