It can’t be a possession… – review of the movie “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It”

Going to The Conjuring 3 , you probably know the previous parts of the series. If not, I will briefly explain what we are dealing with. In these films, labeled “story based on facts,” we watch the work of Lorraine and Ed Warren, or secular experts in cooperation with the Church on possession and all other supernatural or demonic phenomena. It was they who faced, among other things, the famous Annabelle doll. Like detectives, they take up cases reported to them by private individuals tormented by evil powers, and then relieve them of trouble, thanks to Ed’s knowledge and spiritual strength and Lorraine’s psychic abilities.

A riddle like no other

The first scenes immediately throw us into the action – we look at the final stage of the work of a marriage with a family of a demon-possessed several-year-old boy, David. His “tenant” is already clearly enraged, sending him terrifying visions and forcing him to potentially murderous aggression against his household. A decision is made to carry out an exorcism immediately, and the Warrens drag a priest to replace him. However, the ritual does not go according to plan, and although the child seems healed, a tragedy takes place after a few days, and without the participation of little David.

Now the dark forces are concentrated around Arne, a young man present during the exorcism, engaged to the older sister of the boy mentioned above. Ed soon realizes that the demon is behaving completely non-standard, and neither Arne nor David apparently fell victim to possession. The Warrens must find themselves in the new situation as soon as possible and continue the investigation, because the danger is growing every day, and everything indicates that this time the devilish powers are ruled by a mortal with mysterious but sinister intentions.

Still solid, still conservative

Although the director and writers have changed since the first and second installments of The Conjuring, the level and nature of the next film in the series remains very similar. To use a school comparison, I would say that most aspects of this title deserve a “four”. The acting is at a fairly high level, we can find here a few interesting or visually beautiful frames, the story is engaging and tense, the creators also quite correctly balance between the action and crude jump scares, and building a mysterious and disturbing aura of encirclement. Unfortunately, all this simply lacks character and something clearly above average that would squeeze the viewer into an armchair and remain in his memory for a long time. Exactly the same could be said about previous Conjurings…

In my opinion, the main weakness of the third part is the fear of a too clear departure from both the cliché and the “norm” adopted for this particular series. I myself accepted the fact that this time we will not suffocate in one location throughout the film and try to “get along” with the creature that haunts there. The middle parts of the plot, focusing on the field investigation of the Warrens, gathering information and connecting threads, were the most enjoyable for me and they evoked loose but very positive associations with cinematic adaptations of Dan Brown’s works, such as The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons . Of course, this is not the same caliber of complexity of the plot, but it was still easy to get carried away for a moment looking for clues and guessing what it was all about …

So I was disappointed when at some point the story simply “automatically” jumped on the tracks of the final sequence, and the characters were given the solution on a tray, by a sudden enlightenment. The more so as the final tangle of events and the identity of the main antagonist seemed far-fetched and not very atmospheric, spoiling the impression of the screening as a whole. It was not the only such a rash I noticed, because the first one appeared at the very beginning.

Excuse me, isn’t this a hole in the plot?

Since I can’t go too far on the ending due to spoilers, let’s focus on the opening sequence of the movie, which also has some problems. The several-minute introduction to the action shows us the seemingly successful expulsion of the evil creature from David. We learn, however, that we are dealing not with a possession, but with a curse, and this is transferred to Arne when he invites the demon inside himself at a critical moment to save both the boy and Ed, who is losing to the dark power. Unfortunately, there are two illogicalities arising from this.

First, the transfer of the curse goes unnoticed by everyone except Arne and the unconscious and temporarily isolated Mr. Warren in the hospital recovering from a heart attack. It seems utterly absurd that neither the priest conducting the exorcism nor the experienced Mrs. Warren thought about how exactly the ritual would complete and work if both of them were stunned in the process and Ed was knocked to the floor and nearly lost his life.

Secondly, at a later stage of the plot, we learn that the order and identity of the cursed victims was of key importance for the antagonist. This unfortunately makes no sense at all in light of the fact that the demon’s transition from David to Arne was the result of the latter’s impulsive actions and could not have been planned or even foreseen by the person imposing the curse. After all, it’s a bit too much of a stroke of luck that during the exorcism, a suitable hero was found and he also decided to take the evil powers on himself, don’t you think?

It doesn’t get any worse, it doesn’t get any better

There was no disappointment, but no improvement whatsoever, I thought as I left the theater after the The Conjuring 3 screening and compared it to my impressions after the two previous parts. The idea for the story is a bit different, so in the form of a marathon we should not be bored watching the entire series, and the overall quality of the film is also not below its predecessors. Choosing this title, I assumed that I knew exactly what I was signing up for and well … If you just want to see one more The Conjuring, you will be pleased. However, if you count on some significant innovations or even innovation in the scale of the entire horror genre, then no, it is very far here. Whether we enjoy it or not, this sequel has no surprises!

For the movie The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, please visit the Cinema City cinema network!