The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Review: Patrick Wilson And Vera Farmiga Starrer Conjures Giggly Frights

Here is our review of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It starring Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga

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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Review: Patrick Wilson And Vera Farmiga Starrer Conjures Giggly Frights
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What the devil! The  devil’s advocates  made me do it. I  have no interest in this haunted-house type of trope terror supplier. But the demand for a review was  incessant. “You can’t be selective about your reviews. It’s got nothing to do with personal likes and  dislikes.” Blah  blah. So okay then,  here  goes. The 8th Conjuring movie is a sequel  to the last two films in the series. It’s perhaps a tad better than the last Conjuring film, the Curse Of  La Llorana. And an episode where Lorraine recreates events leading up to the murder of a girl in a forest is savagely sharp in  its impact.

But this one is nonetheless a slog unless you are a diehard  fan  of these devil-may-(s)care films where atmosphere  is all. To be  fair, cinematographer Michael Burgess  shoots the scary scenes in  the light  of darkness when the  flickering-orange  colour suggests  a diabolic  beam  rather than any  ray  of hope.

The  film opens with a little child David(Julian Hilliard) possessed  by the devil, being exorcized when a young man Arnie(Ruairi O'Connor) offers to host the “devil” in his body. I am sure Arnie  didn’t expect  the  Devil to take   up the  offer so quickly. But  there you have  it. Strange are the  ways  of  the twisted.Unwanted guests  are  the  order  of the day, Covid or Devil.


Like previous  Conjuring films this one  too is based   on true facts. Apparently  a man accused of manslaughter pleaded guilty to possession by the Devil. The  Judge  didn’t  swallow that one. But  our  paranormal  investigators  see some truth in  Arnie’s claim.

What  I like about this shiver giving series  is the  credibility that Patrick Wilson and Vera  Farmiga bring to their  roles as Ed and Lorraine Warren. 

More than their cases,  it is their investigation that I find easy to follow and believe in. This isa  couple that  believes in their  truth  no matter  how eerie and outlandish  it may seem to us  heretics/nonbelievers.


While  some of the episodes showing  Arnie’s  anti-gravitational elevation in  the prison hospital are  more pukey than spooky,   some  of  Ed and Lorraine’s occult  trysts  with an old priest(John Noble)  are bound to  give you jumpscares  no matter how  much of  a disbelieving rationalist  you might be.

There is  a particularly creepy passage in an underground  sequence where Lorraine runs for her life  as she sees several images of herself running with her.Besides doling out the jitters, there is  also some unexpected humour  in the  overly solemn rites of exorcism. Lorraine tells  a snarky  police office she has met Elvis Presley. To this  the cop  sniggers,  “Before or after he  died?” “Before…and after,” is  Lorraine’s deadpan  reply. You can  defeat the demon. But not the  exorcist.




Image Source: Instagram/theconjuring, youtube/warnerbrospictures