When the third Conjuring movie was released last month I did not pay much attention to it as the trailer was underwhelming to me. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the first and second movies but this new one looked boring and predictable, like, yes, I know the Warrens were real people and the movies were based on their demonic possession cases but, come on, a guy claiming to having murdered against his will and going to jail for it and having the Warrens at his trial trying to prove that the devil made him do it? Really? Nah, I don’t wanna see a two-hour-long spooky Law & Order episode, I have Hulu for that thank you so much.
Anyway, cut to a couple of days ago when I had nothing better to do so I took myself to the movies and unironically purchased a ticket for The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021). Long story short, the trailer was full of shit and the annoying trial thingy turned out to be NOT the focus of the film per se and the entire movie was amazing, next level, perfection, a breath of fresh air, a cinematic gift from the Gods, if you will.
Plus, since this was officially my very first horror movie on the big screen post lockdown, my whole mind, body, and soul were primed for a scary good time in the comfort of a big movie theater with popcorn and soda on deck in order to experience the engulfing visuals and surround sound. The cherry on top? I was all alone during the screening, as in, I was the only patron that night who purchased a ticket for that date, that time – I was on cloud nine! Hell yeah!
SPOILERS AHEAD
This time around, Lorraine Warren was portrayed as a stronger woman, wearing the pants in the relationship, taking care of business, literally running, crawling, fighting, kicking butt. The Lorraine of the 80’s would be the one you’d want to call if the shit hit the fan.
Ed Warren, on the other hand, didn’t look so hot as aging and a bad heart got the best of him, after all, he was almost 20 years older than Lorraine so the man was there, wheelchair and cane in tow, ready to help his wife, literally holding her purse while she went investigating the sinister events surrounding Arne’s legal problems. To be fair, towards the end, he regained his strength and was able to use those big, strong arms of his to destroy the witch’s altar.
The witch, better known as The Occultist, was nothing more than a woman with a demonic agenda, you see, she promised the devil a soul in exchange of, well, I actually don’t know, I might have missed that part in the movie but I bet it had something to do with power, money, or eternal youth, you know, the good old classics. So, The Occultists was the estranged daughter of another paranormal professional who happened to be an acquaintance of the Warrens, and she was using a sequence of spells and totems to make people do stuff on her behalf in order to get said soul to the devil.
One of The Occultist initial victims was an 11-year old kid, but (surprise!) the Warrens ended up releasing him from her spell/witch possession and unbeknownst to her the malevolent curse “jumped” to the kid’s older sister’s fiancé, Arne, which (surprise surprise) ultimately benefited her as the strength of a possessed grown man was better than that of a little kid. And yes, of course, just as she wanted him to, Arne did kill for her and that is the only reason why you and I are here today talking about this movie.
The Warrens tried to prove the innocence of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, the 19-year-old claiming to have been possessed against his will by the devil (The Occultist) a few months after a demon “jumped” into him when he, himself, “invited” him in (the demon) as a desperate act while in attendance at the exorcism of the before mentioned 11-year-old (I know, it’s a lot). The murder was a real true crime case that was taken to the Connecticut Superior Court in 1981 in which Arne was found guilty in the murder of his landlord (Alan Bono in real life, Bruno Sauls in the movie) and on November 24, 1981, he was convicted of first-degree manslaughter and sentenced to 10-20 years in prison (only served five). [NOTE: If you would like to know more details about the trial, I suggest you watch this YT video by Estela Naiad.]
So now you know my favorable opinion about the new Conjuring movie and should not surprise you that I highly recommend you go watch it on the big screen as soon as possible. One thing I would like to mention before I close this post is, and all in the name of full transparency, that there were a couple of teeny-tiny aspects that I disliked with a passion:
1st - The ambiance of the film was too dark, like, unnecessarily so and sometimes I found myself thinking, You guys, it’s okay for you to turn on the lights, you will still be spooky and shit. I mean, no joke, it was surprising how out of their way production went to have poorly lit rooms, relying on small lamps, candles, and flashlights… it was almost comical!
2nd - Also almost comical? How the writers tried hard to bias our judgment against the landlord (Arne’s victim) as they portrayed him as the worst person ever, an irresponsible, noisy drunk whose dead would be a positive thing for us watching the movie—the character blasted extremely loud music when on camera, so to see him onscreen was to experience pain in our ears IRL—and a total injustice for poor Arne. The devil made Arne kill? The writers made me enjoy the kill.
In Love and Fear,
-Marath
P.S. The possessed corpse from the morgue? #iconic #moreplease
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