The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It; Grade: C
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It continues the wild whacky ghost adventures of the Warrens Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga). In this new whacky ghost adventure, Ed and Lorraine are encountering a demonic possession of an 8 year old boy David (Julian Hilliard), as Ed and Lorraine try to perform an exorcism. The demon inside David has gone berserk, making David shape into uncomfortable positions with his body, as Ed is struggling immensely trying to get the demon out of David. Have no fear: David's older brother Arne (Ruairi O'Connor) is here to save the day. Arne tries to communicate with the spirit inside David, telling the spirit to stop bullying him and even offers to take him instead of David. Fortunately David is back to normal again and all is well... NOPE! It turns out: Arne now has an evil spirit inside him haunting him and making him lose sleep. One fine day Arne has murdered a man, but has no recollection of doing such a thing, as Arne is now on trial for death row. It's up to yet again: Ed and Lorraine to not only save Arne, but to also put an end to another ghost!
If this film wasn't a continuation of the first two Conjuring films, more than likely would've sat this one out because I really don't care for The Conjuring universe films at all. They've become so repetitive in terms of loud noises and jump scare nonsense. I loved The Conjuring and thought The Conjuring 2 was a solid sequel, so I figure maybe this consistent streak will go further onto a trilogy.
I had hopes The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It would try something particular new, as I was hoping to get something from the likes of The Exorcism of Emily Rose. What made me enjoy The Exorcism of Emily Rose was more of the court case drama aspect of the film, as it was fairly engaging and most certainly interesting. As this film is dealing with some kind of court case, as a young man whom is on death row due to murdering someone which was caused by possession... I figured it was going to bring on a similar vibe to the other film. This film really isn't much of a court case drama at all, it does have a couple brief moments in the court house and one scene gathering up evidence, but other than that it's more solving a mystery.
I will say in some sense: The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It does differ from the previous couple films, as it's not just featuring a haunted spirit this time around, it's now centered around a curse. Within performing this curse that is harming this family, the Warrens are trying to discover whom is behind all this and are they dead or alive?! So I can at least appreciate it was trying something different. However comparing this to the previous two films, it doesn't really shape up well with the superior two, it's surely better than majority of the Conjuring universe spinoff films at least.
In some degree the story is kind of interesting, as you're trying to discover whom is behind this, however the story tends to shy away delivering interest and wants to deliver the same ole gag we're used to seeing. I didn't see a single trailer for this film and yet the predictability in all the jump scare sequences, was rather embarrassing but more so annoying. The whole horror aspect is immensely weak, covered by unnecessary loud noises and jump scare horror sequences with special effects that were honestly dull. Like I was kind of surprised by the sequences especially, it felt like there was nothing creative behind any of them, it felt all recycled from previous films, which makes sense given we've received like what 8 films now?! So chances are it's going to get very old, very quick, as they ran out of ideas in creating scares. This film also suffers from pacing as well, as I found this rather slow. It's weird because this film tends to be more leaning on creating entertainment with it's scares, yet I found myself yawning majority of the time and losing much interest in the film itself.
There's a couple of things I'm not so quite sure about, especially some moments leading to where this curse originated from. It could be that I perhaps missed something, as one particular scene didn't quite add up, however due to my lack of interest with the entire film itself... I just don't care at this point to come back to it. The cast was fine, I think Vera Farmiga had the best performance as she helmed her performance yet again as Lorraine Warren. However I found Patrick Wilson's performance as Ed to be quite mediocre, as I found several moments where he was over acting.
Kind of disappointed this trilogy did not ended up on a high note, as the previous two were such good films. At least my time didn't felt wasted, but if a fourth film were to occur I simply may end up skipping it just like the universe itself.
Overall, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It was just ok. If you have a date then sure go see it at the theater, if you're riding solo then just watch this on HBO Max or wait till rental, you're not missing much I will say. -Mitch Smietana