{"id":9821,"date":"2024-12-10T17:49:29","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T22:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9821"},"modified":"2024-12-10T17:49:29","modified_gmt":"2024-12-10T22:49:29","slug":"the-conjuring-the-devil-made-me-do-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/12\/10\/the-conjuring-the-devil-made-me-do-it\/","title":{"rendered":"The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 112 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (terror, violence, some disturbing images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Chaves\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joseph Bishara\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael Burgess\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 4, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ruairi O\u2019Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, Julian Hilliard, John Noble, Eugenie Bondurant, Shannon Kook, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Keith Arthur Bolden, Steve Coulter, Vince Pisani, Ingrid Bisu, Andrea Andrade, Ashley LeConte Campbell, Sterling Jerins, Paul Wilson, Charlene Amoia.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $65.6M (US)\/$206.4M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Three-quels typically disprove the theory about the third time being a charm. There\u2019s a long, long list of disappointing third entries- e.g. Superman III, The Karate Kid Part III, The Godfather Part III, Terminator 3, X-Men: The Last Stand, etc. Now you can add The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It<\/strong> to the list. The first two Conjuring movies are good. Number three falls somewhere between okay and pretty good. It\u2019s entertaining, but falls short of its predecessors by a medium-sized margin.<\/p>\n

\u00a0If I\u2019m being honest, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It<\/strong> is less a horror movie than it is an investigative thriller. The screenplay by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (Aquaman) centers on a real-life murder case in which the defendant pleaded not guilty by reason of demonic possession. It happened in 1981 in Brookfield, CT. It begins with the exorcism of an 8YO boy (Hilliard, WandaVision) at which paranormal investigators Ed (Wilson, Watchmen) and Lorraine Warren (Farmiga, Bates Motel) are present. It\u2019s a rough one, especially for Ed who suffers a massive heart attack. Before he loses consciousness, he witnesses a very Exorcist-like event. Arne Johnson (O\u2019Connor, The Spanish Princess), the kind-hearted boyfriend of the kid\u2019s older sister Debbie (Hook), invites the evil spirit to leave the boy\u2019s body and\u00a0 take over his own instead. It does.<\/p>\n

\u00a0While possessed, Arne murders his landlord (Blevins, Death Wish) by stabbing him 22 times. The Warrens, knowing of Arne\u2019s possessed state, convince his skeptical attorney to plead him not guilty by reason of demonic possession, a first in American legal history. This is where their work begins. They have to find proof of possession. That means proving the existence of evil forces. Their investigation leads them to a former priest (Noble, LOTR 2 & 3) with knowledge of the occult and a similar unsolved murder in a town more than 100 miles away.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Directed by Michael Chaves (The Curse of La Llorona), The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It<\/strong> goes off-track more than once with the other murder case and Ed\u2019s post-heart attack health problems. It takes away from the main story which should have remained the focus. When it finally regains its footing, it feels like it\u2019s in a rush to get to the end. Also, the screenplay doesn\u2019t connect all the dots between the two cases. I\u2019m still not entirely clear how they\u2019re connected to each other aside from the same evil spirit. However, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It<\/strong> does have a few decent \u201cBOO!\u201d scenes even though none of them made me jump out of my seat. The first one is a lot more effective in this area.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Despite its flaws, I enjoyed The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It<\/strong>. Sure, it\u2019s shamelessly derivative with its many recognizable nods to The Exorcist, especially the shot of a priest with a suitcase standing by a street light. The scares are mostly predictable and all CGI. It brings nothing new to the genre. HOWEVER, it has great performances by Wilson and Farmiga as the Warrens, real-life paranormal investigators who looked into over 10,000 cases during their career including the infamous Amityville haunting. They are the emotional heart of the film. In one scene, Lorraine tells the story of how she and Ed first met. It\u2019s not superfluous either. As we come to learn, their love is a strength not a weakness in their particular profession. O\u2019Connor is also good as Arne, a good person fallen victim to evil forces beyond his control. Hook, a relative newcomer, has some good scenes as the devoted girlfriend.<\/p>\n

\u00a0To close, I\u2019d just like to say that The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It<\/strong> is kind of a silly title. If you\u2019re of a certain age, it evokes comedian Flip Wilson more than it does an uneasy feeling. Maybe they should have went with The Conjuring 3 instead. It\u2019s a simple but effective title.\"\"<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 112 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (terror, violence, some disturbing images)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Michael Chaves\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Joseph Bishara\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael Burgess\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 4, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ruairi O\u2019Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, Julian Hilliard, John Noble, Eugenie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10070,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/The-Conjuring-The-Devil-Mad.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9821"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10072,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9821\/revisions\/10072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}