RECENT WATCHES: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

The day was February 16th, 1981 and the place was Brookfield, Connecticut. Nineteen year Arne Cheyenne Johnson didn't show up to his tree trimming job that morning. Instead, he spent the day with his girlfriend, Debbie Glatzel, at the dog kennel where she worked and lived. Her boss and landlord, Alan Bono, took them to lunch and bought everybody alcoholic beverages. When a drunk Bono grabbed Debbie's nine year old cousin, Johnson and the other man began to argue. Arne – who described himself as having “a drinking problem” – flew into a rage and stabbed Bono five times. Though the weapon was a mere pocket knife, the lacerations were deep, one extending from Bono's stomach to his heart. He died at the hospital several hours later. Arne Johnson was quickly arrested by the police, claiming he had no memory of committing the crime. When the trial arrived, Johnson's defense team put forth a plea of not guilty... By reason of demonic possession. Ya see, earlier that year, the Glatzel family moved into a dilapidated rental property. Shortly afterwards, Debbie's eleven year old little brother, David, allegedly began to see a creepy old man and the devil himself around the house. The boy exhibited strange behavior, suffering from night terrors and mysterious bruises. The family sought the assistance of Ed and Lorraine Warren, who immediately diagnosed David as demonically possessed. They claim to have seen the kid do all sorts of crazy shit – speak in tongues, levitate, manifest a black mist – and performed several exorcisms. During one such ritual, Arne Johnson begged the demon haunting David to take him instead. This was the basis of his lawyer's defense, that an evil spirit entered Arne's body at that time and compelled him to kill six months later.

Such an outrageous claim, naturally, attracted instant media attention. The Warrens were front and center, trumpeting to the press about the evil influences behind what quickly became known as "the Demon Murder Trial" or "the devil made me do it" case. In private, the Warrens reportedly promised the Glatzels that the claims would clear Arne's name, make them all rich, and attract book and movie deals. They were half-right. In 1983, frequent Warren collaborator Gerald Brittle co-authored the best seller, "The Devil in Connecticut." A TV movie-of-the-week starring Kevin Bacon, "The Demon Murder Case," aired on NBC that March. As for the latter predictions, they proved less accurate. The Glatzels receive all of two thousand dollars from the publishers. At Johnson's trial, the presiding judge threw out all mentions of demonic influence, calling such testimony "irrelative and unscientific." After an unsuccessful backup claim of self-defense, Arne Johnson was convicted of first-degree manslaughter. He served five years of a twenty year sentence. In the decades since, Arne and Debbie – married while he was imprisoned and together for the rest of her life – never waivered from their supernatural claims. Carl Glatzel Jr., David's other sibling, insisted the possession story was a hoax. He later sued Brittle for libel, after being portrayed as a villain in "The Devil in Connecticut" because of his skepticism. He eventually unearthed his mother's journal and found she had been clandestinely dosing the entire family with Sominex, a sleep aide capable of causing hallucinations and psychosis. Which is certainly a more creditable explanation for David and Arne's unusual behavior than the intervention of Luciferian entities. 

Not that the truth has ever stopped the producers of "The Conjuring" franchise. Peter Safran announced that the eighth entry in the billion dollar grossing cinematic universe and the third to focus directly on Ed and Lorraine would not be a haunted house story. After briefly considering the supposed werewolf incident the Warrens unraveled, James Wan and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick pulled from the notorious court case for "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It." Michael Chaves must have impressed Wan with "The Curse of La Llorona," as directorial duties were passed onto him the same way an evil spirit swaps bodies. The five year wait since "The Conjuring 2" didn't dampen the public's thirst for the dubious adventures of the Warrens too much. The sequel grossed 100 million dollars less than the last one, which was still a butt load more than its modest budget. How did it measure up to the wildly inconsistent quality standards of this series? 

"The Devil Made Me So It" doesn't spend much time on the trial that inspired its story, perhaps hoping the audience will forget that an actual human being died during these grossly fictionalized events. The film begins with David's possession well under way, the night when Arne goaded the inhuman spirit into his body. After his newly acquired demon compels Arne to kill against his will, Ed and Lorraine set out on an investigation. They uncover an arcane doodad made of bones under the house, the first part of a curse enacted by the Disciples of the Ram. (The same Satanic hippy gang from "Annabelle," for further cinematic universe points.) An expert in the cult says it can only be broken by destroying the responsible party's altar. The curse summons a demon that desires two souls: One taken through murder and the other taken through suicide. Ed and Lorraine race against time – and his worsening heart condition – to find the responsible witch and stop them before Arne is compelled to kill himself in prison. 

Before making the leap to proper superhero theatrics with "Aquaman," "The Conjuring 2" showed that James Wan was already following the story structures of the genre. While Wan's fingerprints on "The Devil Made Me Do It" are minimal, the sequel does continue this trend. At this point, all Ed and Lorraine Warren are lacking are spiffy costumes and catchy nicknames. Lorraine's medium powers were previously depicted as more intuitive, the visions coming to her less so than something she willfully activated. In their third outing, Lorraine can deduce an item's importance by looking at it and project her spirit across vast distances, like something out of a "Hellblazer" comic. Further Batman-ing the premise, the duo are shown working with the cops to crack cold cases. Rather than have the antagonist be an otherworldly spirit, part three cooks up a proper supervillain for them to fight: A black-clad occultist played by Eugenie Bondurant, who has her own evil tricks up her sleeves, sneers at the good guys, and dispatched in a suitably ironic fashion. She gets a tragic origin worthy of any comic book antagonist too. Ed's heart problems emerge as a Kryptonite of sorts, a weakness the villains – and the narrative – can utilize. 

While James Wan could never be mistaken for a subtle director, he has shown an ability to generate suspense or tension in the past. Chaves' “The Curse of La Llorona” would emphasize thundering jump scares almost to the exclusion of any thing else. “The Devil Made Me Do It” doubles down further on this approach. Within its opening minutes, blood is pouring from a shower head while demonic shrieks fill up the soundtrack. As David's exorcism ensues, the audience is already hammered with deafening screams, over-the-top sound design, and computer-assisted acts of bodily contortion. Keep in mind, all of this is before the title screen comes up. This is the strategy the sequel deploys throughout, the film growing quiet before a demonic figure or ghostly hand or reanimated corpse leaps from the darkness as loudly as possibly. The only other trick “The Devil Made Me Do It” are lame gross-outs, mostly devoted to the aforementioned jerky bodily movements and the easy shock value of a big fat naked guy. This is paired with a noticeable reliance on digital effects, such as sparks spurting from a crucifix or someone levitated before a window in a Christ pose. This is a style of horror movie I find to be, at best, overcooked. To be much more brutally honest, it's also incredibly annoying. 

Being a delivery system for protracted, obnoxiously showy jump-scares would be bad enough. Unfortunately, “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do” continues the series' distressing subtext of regressive politics. The Catholic Church being the ultimate defenders of good in a world beset by supernatural evil – while, paradoxically, embracing the mystical shamanism of Lorraine Warren's practices – is standard issue for this franchise. The sequel also plays the eighties Satanic Panic completely straight, embracing the conspiracy theory that there's an underground network of organized devil-worshippers working to undermine good Christian families in America. Though Arne and Debbie perhaps brought it on themselves, since they are living in sin and fornicating without consent of the Lord after all. The two getting married at the end is presented as the story's moral victory, since even a film as contemptable of the truth as this couldn't deny that Arne totally went to jail. The villain is also notably a female occultist, who is depicted as a cartoonishly evil force despite having a totally understandable grudge against Christian institutions. It's all rather reactionary, more so than the full-blown Catholic propaganda of “The Conjuring 2.” Though, I suppose, still less reductive than the insultingly traditionalist moral of the first “Annabelle.”

Part of what makes Ed and Lorraine such worthy holy sentries against evil is that they are so devoutly dedicated to each other. (Something that is also only true within the “Conjuring”-verse's fictional universe.) Their love for each other is depicted as the source of their power, ultimately being enough to overcome the villain's evil magic at the end. It's an extremely cheesy message, another example of the script's unfailing hackiness. However, it's a testament to how lovable Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson has made these two that it almost works. Despite being stuck in a very dumb and very loud horror show, and forced to cough up preposterous dialogue, the leads remain so damn charming. When talking about their first date, which gratuitously comes back around at the end, I found the faintest hint of a smile tugging at my lips. It's dumb and obvious and ridiculous and the only hint of an actual, meaningful human emotion this very stupid movie contains. 

“The Conjuring” was always a deeply misguided and difficult to defend series. It's no coincidence that the best parts of this cinematic universe – the second and third “Annabelle” movies – disregard the Warrens and their scummy, wack-a-doo belief system in favor of urban legend style writing and more relaxed, seventies movie type atmospheres. The cowardice of “The Devil Made Me Do It” is most blatant in its decision to remove Carl Glatzel Jr. from the story all together. There's no room for skepticism in a film this thuddingly single-minded. Once again, as tempted as I am to attribute the movie's overall mediocrity to its rotten soul, I think the crime of it being so unfailingly loud and tedious probably offends me a lot more. Only Wilson and Farmiga's lived-in charm manages to make this jump-scare marathon anything more than dire. A motivation much more diabolical than the Devil's – to squeeze every last drop out of any semi-good idea and easily frightened audiences, in defiance of logic, the truth, and empathy – is perhaps the true force of evil at work here. [4/10]