I’ve always been a sucker for a good ghost story. Big spooky houses filled with secret histories, hushed atrocities, and vengeful spirits – when creatively executed with skill and artistry – are some of my favorite kinds of stories to watch on the big screen. When done right, you can count on me to be on the edge of my seat, nervously crunching popcorn with eyes wide open. But, when done wrong (which, I’m sad to say, is most of the time), I’m bored to the point of annoyance. Unfortunately, the latest entry into The Conjuring universe is the latter.
I lost touch with famed paranormal experts Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) after 2013’s The Conjuring, but have remained hopeful for their success. The real-life investigations of the Warrens are in many ways either the direct basis or indirect inspiration for almost every ghost, haunting, or exorcism story of the last fifty years. Even to someone like me (who loves to be scared by the unknown but does not believe in ghosts in any way, shape, or form), their exploits are legendary and worthy of the best kind of treatment. I only wish The Devil Made Me Do It lived up to the Warren’s storied reputation.
The poster reads “Based on a True Story,” and “The Demonic Case that Shocked America” – both of which are, at best, dubious claims. This isn’t my issue, though, as any film about demonic possession or hauntings is bound to stray towards the unprovable. The “ripped from the headlines” approach and the overall basics of the plot and the backstory are all fine – it’s the execution and the add-ons that drag The Devil Made Me Do It into the pits. It’s a bloated film with a tacked-on villain that fails to be frightening or even very interesting for that matter.
The true story behind the premise – that in 1981, a young man in Connecticut (played by Ruairi O’Connor in the film) used “demonic possession” as his defense in a murder case – is a sound one with plenty of opportunity for exploration. Director Michael Chaves and screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, however, have other ideas. Instead of focusing on the bizarre nature of the trial and its aftermath, the filmmakers concoct a played-out story about an occultist (Eugenie Bondurant) who lives in a tunnel and must possess three souls lest she be destroyed by the demon she attempts to summon – or some such nonsense. It’s a convoluted and off-topic mess. The murder trial and demonic defense (or the real-life cults mentioned) get almost no screentime, which takes the wind completely out of the film’s sails – not to mention only scratching the surface of the promises made by its tagline.
It’s also not scary. Chaves makes a stab at giving us the creeps, but his attempts are the same overused and tired clichés we’ve been beaten over the head with for decades now – and they’re watered-down and lazy at that. The Devil Made Me Do It offers nothing new to the franchise or to the genre. In fact, I would argue that by not providing anything of discernable substance, it may actually hurt the genre by holding back potential innovations to come. If you can make a bunch of money doing the same shit over and over, why try anything new, right? It’s a frustrating concept, made more so by my acknowledgment that The Devil Made Me Do It introduces nearly every trope I love to see in a horror movie (cults and occultism, possession, investigation, satanic panic, etc.), yet still only manages a perfunctory, low bar output. What gives?
Some measured positives: Wilson and Farmiga are a great team. I truly enjoy watching them in their weird Hester Prynne-by-way-of-Barney Miller outfits, and their chemistry is a force to be reckoned with. The way they embody the Warrens’ belief makes me want to believe as well – even if there’s no way in hell I ever will. In addition, there are some striking visual effects at work here. The opening sequence (complete with a direct rip-off of a famous shot from another movie about exorcisms) contains the film’s best moments by way of some decently executed contortionist body horror. The “psychic link” segment also mostly works, but proves too little too late.
James is a writer, skateboarder, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.