The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Review
We’re almost done with my Conjuring review series. We’re 11 days away from The Conjuring: Last Rites releasing. Today we’re talking about The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It. This is a film that I was very curious to check out because it’s not directed by James Wan. The previous two films in the main line Conjuring films were directed by James Wan. I’ve heard a lot more negative opinions on this film. Where did I land on the film? Was it good? Was it bad? Let’s talk!
The Good
Right out of the gate the thing that I appreciated most about this film was that it told an interesting story that felt different. The previous main line Conjuring as well as most of the spinoffs take place at this house with this creepy stuff happening. With the case of this film, it’s exploring new ideas and telling a different story. It’s about this trial going on involving this horror bit and how that would affect this town. It has a little bit of a court drama aspect to it. You get the police getting involved and helping The Warrens out at multiple points in time. We see how the public would react to The Warrens and if the public thinks they can be trusted or not. The Warrens have become almost these celebrities because of how weird and crazy their job is. They explored this idea with The Warrens’ daughter in Annabelle Comes Home and they applied that idea to The Warrens, to Ed and Loraine this time and it was very well done. With some of the themes that it’s exploring this could’ve been a very nice way to close out The Warrens’ story because of the themes and ideas it’s exploring.
Speaking of The Warrens they’re once again a great set of characters that are easily the best characters we’ve gotten in this franchise. What makes them these great characters is that they don’t feel like movie characters, they feel like real people. That’s probably helped because Ed and Loraine are actual people that these films are based around. But even when you translate real people to a movie they can feel like stock movie characters. I was curious if they’d only be great characters under James Wan’s direction, but even with this new director, Michael Chaves they’re still great characters. You have to give a lot of credit to Patrick Wilson and Vera Fermiga who are great actors that can find the humanity in these characters whose lives aren’t normal. They also have great chemistry with one another that’s important because their relationship in the film is very interesting. They love each other, they want to support and protect each other while also knowing that their job isn’t easy. We’ll see how Last Rites closes their story but I think they’re easily some of the best horror movie characters of all time.
Another strong point of the film was Michael Chaves as a director. Now, is he as good or iconic as James Wan in his genre, of course not. I think Wan’s absence is what made a lot of people disappointed and frustrated with this film. But if you take Chaves on his own and not compare him to Wan, he does a lot of very cool stuff in this film. He uses the camera in some interesting ways where he’ll use these long shots while twisting the camera to provide this sense of unease and making rooms and hallways feel much bigger and longer. There’s two stand out sequences towards the beginning of the film with the kid’s limbs bending and snapping on the table that’s appropriately creepy and unsettling with what’s going on and the images that are shown. There’s another scene involving water early on that similarly is creepy and builds this sense of dread and tension. Had Wan directed the film, I think the sequence would be better and more memorable but for what Chaves’ directing abilities are I think he does a pretty solid job and has these moments where I can sort of understand why they decided to have him direct several of the later films in the Conjuring universe, including this film.
Finally, as is the case with most of these films it does a great job of transporting you back to a time and a place. Everything from the soundtrack, the clothing, the look, and feel of the film it feels like they took us 40 years in the past to spend time with these characters. It adds this style to that film that makes it stand out from other horror films. I think the films being a period piece film actually adds more unease and scares because they don’t have phones or modern technology to help them out or get them away from scary situations.
The Bad
The big thing here is that I feel like there’s a lot of themes and ideas being explored in this film that aren’t properly set up so they lack the impact that they should in the back half. One of the ideas in this film is exploring how The Warrens’ met and their relationship. It kind of ties into the plot and what the horrific threat is but at the same time it didn’t feel properly set up. It’s hinted at in the first half and felt like it was going to be something more important. For long stretches of the film, it’s not really explored more or stated so it feels like this random idea thrown in there. That idea of their love for each other ties back into the third act and the final moments of the film but doesn’t have the emotional impact that I feel it should. I don’t know if there were reshoots or if the script was changed so some of these ideas got lost. But it’s a very weird decision and the way that it’s handled. Going back to what I said earlier, but if the idea was handled better then I think this could’ve been a very satisfying conclusion to their story.
Also, I do think the absence of James Wan is present in the film. I did praise Chaves as a director and I stand by that. There’s a lot of what he does that I think works for this film. But when you’re comparing this film to the previous films it does feel like a step down. You can imagine a film that’s able to balance all of these themes and ideas in a better way. I think the film as a whole would be better in terms of the look and the story. Had we not gotten the previous two films that were directed by James Wan then I think people would look upon this film more positively.
Final Thoughts: In general, I’m a bit surprised by the negative reaction from fans regarding this film. Is the film as good as the previous two? No. Would the film be better had James Wan directed it? Yes. But the people that hate on this film and call it one of the worst horror films of the decade seem so off and I don’t understand what they’re saying. Of the films in the franchise, this is probably the one that’s just sort of there for me. There’s nothing fantastic that it does nor is there anything that bothers me and makes it a bad film.
The Score: 8.3/10 (B)
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