The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Back in 1970, Comedian Flip Wilson performed a routine on The Ed Sullivan Show featuring a character that would become his most famous persona. Geraldine Jones was a sassy, liberated Southern woman. Stay with me. I promise this is relevant. In the comedic bit, she is a preacher’s wife. Her husband angrily demands why she bought an expensive new dress. Denying all culpability she replies, “The Devil made me do it.” The response became a ubiquitous expression of the 1970s and a hilarious way to deny all responsibility for one’s actions.

This chapter could have simply been called The Conjuring 3 but the more creative title harks back to when it was a popular and lighthearted catchphrase. Yet there’s nothing funny about this flick. In fact, a very real event inspired this story. In 1981, Arne Cheyenne Johnson, 19, was charged with murdering his landlord, Alan Bono in cold blood while they fought over his girlfriend, Debbie Glatzel. The defense? “The devil made him do it” — or more specifically a demon manipulated Johnson into stabbing Bono to death with a pocket knife.

This is technically the eighth film in “The Conjuring Universe” but only the third to star Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren, two paranormal investigators. Ed is a self-professed demonologist. Lorraine is a clairvoyant and a light trance medium. Together they form a powerful team. The Warrens are called in to contribute evidence for Arne Johnson’s (Ruairi O’Connor) defense.

That factual basis could have laid the foundation for an ambitious courtroom drama highlighted by intelligent discourse and legal precedents. I would have so much preferred that narrative to the one presented here — a shallow fright-fest. As is de rigueur for satanic possession movies, we get scenes that steal iconography from The Exorcist. Look! A hat-wearing priest (Steve Coulter) carrying a bag steps out of a car and approaches a house at night in the beginning. Now Father Gordon is evicting demons from people by shouting scripture. There are lots of bizarre happenings that utilize unsettling special effects. The series of horror vignettes admittedly do give some genuine frights.

The production provides some creepy images that manage to engage at times. It begins when a supernatural presence is trying to obtain the soul of mild bespectacled 8-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard), Debbie’s (Sarah Catherine Hook) younger brother. The little boy is possessed and his body contorts in weird ways so that you hear his bones crack. Arne Johnson gets involved when he sacrifices his own body to save the boy by speaking directly to the beast: “Come into me, I’ll fight you, come into me.” Later in flashback, we see David was visited by the evil spirit earlier while lying on a waterbed. Those are effective displays. The film is entertaining in fits and starts.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are great actors slumming in a so-so movie. It’s not terrible. I’d recommend this to anyone who is a big fan of chapters 1 & 2. However, if you’re a demanding connoisseur of quality horror pictures, there are far better choices. A Quiet Place Part II is currently playing in theaters.

06-04-21