I think I hurt someone (The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It 2021)

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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

6.5/10

My Favourite horror franchise of recent years is coming to a climax with a third instalment of The Conjuring series. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise the roles that they were made for as the Warrens. This time, it seems that the story is a little different from the others. The first two movies investigated a possession in its moment of happening. The third movie will be about the married couple proving that a murder happened because the gent in question was possessed at the time. The Conjuring Universe, as they call it, has been very much hit and miss. Movies like The Nun and an Annabelle movie or two are very weak instalments and whenever the Warrens come back to the big screen, my confidence in the franchise comes back. Let's find out if this can get us back on track. James Wan is back as a producer so hopefully so.

Without going too deep and descriptive to the story, it is based on true events yet again. This time a young gent named Arne is on trial in Connecticut for murder. Taking place in 1981, Arne has killed his landlord and it's up to the Warrens to prove that he was taken over by an evil spirit. The movie actually begins with the Warrens exorcising a possessed child until Arne, who is dating the child's sister, begs the spirit to take him instead. 

The beginning started strong, every strong and the exorcising scene was creepy, intense and very much appreciated by myself. From here, we watch the downfall of Arne as the Warrens are then brought onto the case. Our main characters are getting on now, but this time, there is a different kind of villain. As we explore the case, we find out that the family involved were cursed by a female who has turned to the dark arts. It is down to the Warrens to track this girl down, who is being protected by an unlikely character, all before Arne is totally consumed by the spirit. The story obviously ends with the conviction of murder being overturned and manslaughter being the charge due to demonic possession. 

The story for me is a little disappointing. Whereas the other Conjuring movies build the tension throughout and end up with a climactic encounter with a possessed individual, this movie starts strong with an exorcism and then slows down through court cases, chases and not much horror at all. It actually hurts to write that as I had a lot of confidence that this would add to my admiration for the franchise. As the opening scene played out, I didn't doubt a thing but the storyline was at least interesting. That is always the case when it revolves around true events. I needed jump scares, I needed a lot more horror but this one was the weakest out of the trio, that's for sure.

Something you can never fault in the franchise though are Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. The roles that these two were made to play, Farmiga has her younger sister in the franchise now and Wilson stars in the Insidious franchise. Once again a strong showing from the two. Adding Ruairi O'Conner to the fold as Arne gave us a third main character this time around. Watching the events unfold, Arne turning into the demon and then finally claiming his innocence, it was a really well-played character from O'conner. 

As the Warren characters seemed quite aged in this movie, I'm not too sure whether we are going to be seeing another movie. I really hope we do as not only would I like redemption for this movie but they need one last hoorah. James Wan needs to get back on the case and take the helm to give us one last outing As also, it is worth checking into the true events that the movie is based on and I really wanted to find out where Arne is now. Apparently, he's nowhere to be seen but rumour has it he got a labouring job and he's living his life somewhere. I wonder what he thought about this movie.