The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

Plot of The Conjuring3: Lorraine and Ed Warren are called to assist with the exorcism of a boy, David Glatzel which is unsuccessful, but finally  Ed sees Arne Cheyenne Johnson, the fiancée of David’s sister, encourage  the demon to leave David and take him. But Ed has a heart attack and wakes up later in hospital, relating what he has seen. Meanwhile Arne, while hallucinating that he is being attacked by a demon, stabs his employer 22 times and is arrested in a dream like state.  The Warrens, investigating, find a demonic totem under the floor of David’s parent’s house. They visit a former priest, father Kastner, who had made a study of demonic cults, and a funeral home where Lorraine is disturbed by visions, as she has been at various times during the investigation. Eventually everything centres on the home of the priest, who has a daughter who is an occultist.

Content: No sex or nudity, drinking, drugs or smoking. The exorcism of the boy is graphic and unpleasant, as is the moment when he is possessed by the demon. Thereafter various people are possessed by a, or some, demons which is indicated by their eyes turning funny. Lorraine has a lot of visions, at one point out in the woods seeming to be taking the part of a girl who stabs to death one of her friends and leaps off a cliff into a lake. The Warrens come to the conclusion that people are cursed and to lift the curse some killings have to be carried out. Meanwhile Arne is in prison, but is affected by the goings on out in the world, finally attempting suicide but is saved, to go to court. Finally Ed is taken over by the demon and goes berserk, but is saved by the love of his wife.

A View: This film was apparently not much liked but still made a fortune, probably on the back of the previous outings, and actually we liked them. I was constantly confused by the fact that when people were possessed by the demon they saw others as demons and killed them. And Lorraine while having visions actually took part in whatever was going on, rather than seeing the events as an observer. I presume that this presentation was an attempt to make what we saw fit with what was presented in court in 1981, but it did not make for compulsive viewing. If anything I became a bit confused. But maybe still a watch if you a fan of the franchise, if not watch one of the others.

Fun Fact: The is the third film depicting the true case of Arne Johnson whose defence of a murder charge was that he had been possessed by a demon.