The Conjuring 2
2016
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Jun 4, 2021 · 55% 256 Reviews Tomatometer 83% 1,000+ Verified Ratings Audience Score "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It" reveals a chilling story of terror, murder and unknown evil that...
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Jun 4, 2021 · Tomris Laffly June 04, 2021. Tweet. Now streaming on: Powered by JustWatch. There is a point in Michael Chaves ’ frustrating and only sparsely scary “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” when you realize something: if you abandon your desire to watch a terrifying haunted house movie in the vein of James Wan ’s “ The Conjuring ...
May 27, 2021 · Horror films. This article is more than 2 years old. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It review – slick threequel magics up scares. The latest tale involving the real-life...
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Jun 1, 2021 · Movies. Movie Reviews. ‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’: Film Review. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren,...
- A diabolical new foe summons a greater sense of scale for the franchise, but doesn’t always offer the scares to match.
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- The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Review
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By Tom Jorgensen
Posted: Jun 2, 2021 2:20 am
There’s a permeating sense throughout The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It that the stalwart horror franchise has come to a fork in the road. After two movies which mined the haunted house setup to great effect, the series could’ve played it safe and sent the Warrens to another spooky home to battle an entity plaguing an unsuspecting family. Instead, director Michael Chaves (The Curse of La Llorona) reframes Ed and Lorraine Warren as paranormal detectives as they try to prove a murderer was not acting of his own volition at the time of his crime. It’s admirable to see this latest Conjuring movie taking narrative risks -- most of which will assuredly pay dividends in future installments -- but on its own merits, The Devil Made Me Do It is a mixed bag that doesn’t quite balance its interesting central mystery with the scares followers of the franchise have come to expect.
The opening sequence, the exorcism of David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard), serves as a sort of tonal handoff and feels like it could’ve been the end of an alternate-universe version of the third Conjuring movie. Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) have endeared themselves to the ailing Glatzels and, after an intense demonic assault featuring some great body horror, seemingly succeed in casting the entity out of young David. But saving David’s soul comes at a cost: not only does Ed suffer a massive heart attack, the demon takes hold of Arne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor), the boyfriend of David’s sister Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook). The demon’s influence over Arne is swift and deadly. In a fit of harried psychosis, Arne murders he and Debbie’s landlord, Bruno Sauls. Realizing that the crime was fallout from David’s exorcism, Ed and Lorraine encourage Arne to plead guilty by reason of demonic possession and set about finding evidence to confirm it.
The Conjuring (2013)
Annabelle (2014)
The Conjuring 2 (2016)
Annabelle: Creation (2017)
The Nun (2018)
The Curse of La Llorona (2019)
The Conjuring franchise has long suffered from an inability to outperform the very first film in the series, 2013's The Conjuring. In a genre that even a fan like myself can admit is often hit or miss, The Conjuring was a critically acclaimed and truly creepy haunted house movie. That kind of thing can be hard to replicate, which is why it’s so refreshing that Annabelle Comes Home does something different. Instead of trying to out-creep The Conjuring, it pivots into a lighter, simpler, funnier film with a tighter plot and a few fresh monsters (some of which fans of mythology and urban legends might recognize). If Annabelle Comes Home should be the last Annabelle-centric film in the series, it feels like a perfect final chapter.
While this film may be the least scary of the mainline series, it does make some strides in how it opens the franchise up to stories of greater scope. Even though you may end up caring more about the Warrens’ success than Arne’s absolution, The Devil Made Me Do It’s central investigation plot is engaging and sets it apart from other films in the Conjuringverse. As the Warrens discover Arne’s demon may not be on our spiritual plane of its own accord, they’re faced with an enemy who, in many ways, is more threatening than any they’ve faced before. The Occultist (Eugenie Bondurant) is a nihilistic, off-putting foe with powers that rival Lorraine’s. While Lorraine’s abilities are usually used passively, The Occultist weaponizes her power in ways that put the Warrens into real peril. The ongoing game of psychic cat and mouse Lorraine and The Occultist engage in provides The Devil Made Me Do It with dangerous energy, especially during one attack that hits especially close to home for the Warrens.
Bondurant cuts an imposing figure throughout, and her appearances always portend especially harrowing challenges for Ed and Lorraine, whose enduring love for each other is exploited as both their greatest weakness and their only defense. Whether or not The Occultist has a future in the franchise, she’s certainly one of the strongest elements of The Devil Made Me Do It and leaves a lasting impression. The always-reliable John Noble (Fringe, The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King) likewise delivers some dark gravity as Father Kastner. Kastner’s a retired priest who assists the Warrens in their hunt for The Occultist and makes the most out of his relatively short appearance. He does make a couple of head-scratching omissions that feel more in service of keeping the Warrens’ in the dark long enough to move them into place for the climax, but overall, Kastner’s contributions feel substantial.
At this point, it’s no secret that the chemistry between Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga’s Ed and Lorraine is one of The Conjuringverse’s secret weapons. Wilson and Farmiga are as watchable as ever here, but The Devil Made Me Do It rests on its laurels in furthering our understanding of them as a couple, and doesn’t do much more for them individually. Ed does have to grapple with the limitations his weakened heart puts on him, but Chaves implies most of this internal struggle with Ed’s labored breathing and frequent falling behind, rather than use it as fodder for conflict between he and Lorraine as they face more and more danger. Farmiga really gets to swing for the fences in her battles with The Occultist, but The Devil Made Me Do It doesn’t give us much insight into how she’s affected by them. Ed and Lorraine’s relationship is most effective in this film’s quieter moments, and glossy romantic cutaways to their first meeting don’t approach the understated sweetness of Lorraine remembering something Ed’s forgotten in a key moment late in the story.
It’s no secret that the chemistry between Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga is one of The Conjuringverse’s secret weapons.
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Though The Devil Made Me Do It is a smart recalibration for The Conjuring series, its successes have little to do with its strengths as a standalone horror movie. Ed and Lorraine Warren's investigation may be an engaging mystery, and their opponent is a franchise-best, but the scares are just not as potent in part because half of them center on a p...
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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is a mixed bag that doesn’t quite balance its interesting central mystery with the scares followers of the franchise have come to expect.
Tom Jorgensen
1,375 Reviews. Hide Spoilers. Sort by: Filter by Rating: 6/10. Decent follow-up, but lacks tension. amonteirojr 8 June 2021.
Jun 4, 2021 · David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. James Wan. Chad Hayes. Stars. Patrick Wilson. Vera Farmiga. Ruairi O'Connor. See production info at IMDbPro. STREAMING. +2. Add to Watchlist. Added by 137K users. 1.3K User reviews.
