Warning: SPOILERS ahead for The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.
In horror sequel The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Ed and Lorraine Warren face a monster that is different from the demons they've encountered before. Directed by Michael Chaves, The Conjuring 3 is loosely based on the true story of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, who in 1981 murdered his landlord and pleaded in court that he was not guilty by reason of demonic possession. Though Johnson was ultimately convicted of manslaughter, it was the first time that demonic possession had been used as a legal defense in the USA.
At the start of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Ed and Lorraine are taking part in an attempted exorcism of an 8 year-old boy, David Glatzel, As the exorcism gets out of control and the demon tries to kill Ed, Arne (the boyfriend of David's sister, Debbie) invites the demon to take possession of him in exchange for letting David go. When the demon later tricks Arne into killing his landlord, Ed and Lorraine attempt to find evidence of demonic possession to present in court, and discover that the same demon possessing Arne is also responsible for another recent murder.
To make matters worse, the demon in The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It can't be exorcised in the same way that others, like Valak and Bathsheba, were banished back to Hell in the previous Conjuring movies. Here's why The Conjuring 3's monster is different from the others that Ed and Lorraine have fought.
Following the runaway success of The Conjuring, the original horror movie was spun off into an entire cinematic universe of movies and monsters. The Conjuring's demon was actually the malevolent spirit of a witch called Bathsheba, who was successfully exorcised from the body of Carolyn Perron by Ed and Lorraine Warren. The movie also introduced the evil doll Annabelle, who is possessed by a demon and whose creepiness propelled her to become the star of her own trilogy. As of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, the demon is still inside the Annabelle doll, kept safe (more or less) in the Warrens' artifact room.
Perhaps the most terrifying monster of the Conjuring Universe is the demon Valak. Summoned to Earth centuries ago by a Satan-worshipper, Valak adopted the form of a nun to mock the faith of the nuns in the monastery it had been trapped in. Ed and Lorraine later tried to exorcise Valak from a man whose body it had possessed, and Valak began stalking and tormenting the couple. In The Conjuring 2 it took control of an old man's ghost and appeared in the frightening form of the Crooked Man, taking possession of a young girl called Janet Hodgson. It wasn't until the end of The Conjuring 2 that Lorraine was finally able to send Valak back to Hell - but it may well find a way to return.
The Curse of La Llorona is based on the Venezuelan folk tale of the "wailing woman," who drowned her own children and is cursed to wander the earth as a spirit in search of them. At the end of the movie, La Llorona's ghost is destroyed by being stabbed in the heart with a cross. Annabelle Comes Home also introduced an ensemble cast of demons and spirits attached to objects in the Warrens' artifact room, including the Ferryman, the Bride, the Hellhound and the Samurai. However, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It's monster is unlike any that the Warrens have faced before.
After finding a witch's totem underneath the Glatzel house, Lorraine realizes why the demon possessing David and Arne couldn't be exorcised, and why it left Arne's body after he committed the murder. The demon is not the true villain of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, but a weapon being wielded by the Occultist - a practitioner of dark magic who summoned the demon to Earth and promised it souls in exchange for its service. The Occultist's only goal is to sow darkness and chaos into the world. She developed an obsession with the dark arts after reading occult books gathered by her father, a priest who hunted Satanic cults, and she built an altar in the old tunnels beneath her childhood home.
The fact that the Occultist is human makes both her and the demon all the more dangerous. Unlike Annabelle's demon (which is tethered to the doll and can be trapped in the artifact room) or Valak (who was sealed inside the monastery for many years) the demon in The Conjuring 3 has no physical limitations. It is initially attached to its victims by the witch's totem, and once it has taken possession of them it can freely leave their bodies and return - no matter how far they run.
Because The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It's demon's true connection is to the Occultist, rather than to her victims, it cannot be exorcised in the same way that Bathsheba's spirit was exorcised from Carolyn Perron, or Valak was exorcised from Janet Hodgson. In fact, the demon is incapable of returning to Hell even if it wanted to. The Occultist made a contract with the demon when summoned it, promising it three souls: the Child (David, whose place is taken by Arne), the Lover (Jessica, who murders the girl she loves and then plunges to her death), and the Man of God (Ed Warren, who attempts to kill Lorraine while possessed). The demon will only return to Hell if all the blood sacrifices are fulfilled, or if the Occultist's altar is destroyed.
The Occultist is the demon-summoning equivalent of an internet troll. She lives in her dad's basement, committing her acts of evil behind a veil of anonymity, and she can only be banished on a temporary basis before popping up elsewhere. This is why Arne's demon is able to completely leave him, allowing him to read out loud from the Bible after he's sent to jail and tested for demonic possession, but then returns to his body whenever the Occultist performs her ritual. Fortunately, Ed Warren is finally able to break the spell by shattering the altar, and since the demon still demands a soul, the Occultist gets perma-banned all the way to Hell.
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June 15, 2021 at 12:16AM
