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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Where to watch.

Watch The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It with a subscription on Max, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

The Devil Made Me Do It represents a comedown for the core Conjuring films, although Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson keep the audience invested.

It may not contain many surprises for fans of the franchise, but this threequel more than makes up for it with another scary, tense adventure for the ghostbusting Warrens.

Critics Reviews

Audience reviews, cast & crew.

Michael Chaves

Patrick Wilson

Vera Farmiga

Lorraine Warren

Ruairi O'Connor

Arne Cheyenne Johnson

Sarah Catherine Hook

Debbie Glatzel

Julian Hilliard

David Glatzel

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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do it

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 ” and settle for the investigative thriller that you have in front of you instead, you might have a decent time. Don’t worry, there’s no way for you to miss that utterly pronounced scene, especially if you’ve watched a David Fincher movie or two. There is a creaky basement. A creepy old man leads the way to it. He might be the Zodiac killer (okay, not exactly, but something along those lines), and yet, someone who barely knows him follows him down all the same, just to gather some evidence around a series of murders.

Had that point never arrived, I could have more easily dismissed the third “The Conjuring” installment—a straight sequel chapter after a number of spin-offs like “ Annabelle ” and “ The Nun ” with varying degrees of smarts, skill and scares—as a horror movie that can’t be bothered to live up to its breathtaking origins. Again, this outing manages to operate as a mediocre police thriller to some degree; but one with too many suspects and incidents-within-harrowing incidents. A mysterious serial murder case emerges amid the film’s confusing tone and someone obsessed enough with its puzzling details has to voluntarily go down the rabbit hole in order to crack it.

But who the hell actually wants the new “The Conjuring” to be downgraded to a mere whodunit anyway, when its original predecessor is still one of the most brilliant and frightening horror movies of the 21 st century? If you’re not that person, this film’s array of hollow jump-scares and uninteresting secrets that culminate in short-lived thrills is unlikely to impress you, despite some successful effects and elegant camerawork by cinematographer Michael Burgess . Still, “ The Curse of La Llorona ” filmmaker Chaves gives it a shot, directing Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as they once again portray paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren wrapped up in a based-on-a-true-story case. The prologue here takes place in 1981, when the exorcism of the adolescent David Glatzel ( Julian Hilliard ) leaves Arne Johnson, a good-spirited young man in a loving relationship with David’s sister Debbie ( Sarah Catherine Hook ), haunted by the grip of an evil force. When Arne commits a horrific murder in the aftermath of the events that use one too many recognizable visual nods to “ The Exorcist ” (including a laughably obvious shot of a priest standing by a soft street lamp with a suitcase in hand), the Warrens slowly uncover similar crimes that took place in the area. So they embark on a quest to prove to Arne’s apprehensive lawyer that Arne was actually possessed while committing the crime. (His real-life case apparently marks the first time in the US where demonic possession was used as defense in a court case.)

Screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick throws in plenty of “The Conjuring” universe references into his script, including an inspired joke with Ed suggesting to introduce Arne’s skeptical lawyer to the cursed doll Annabelle to clear a few of her questions up. But ultimately, the story struggles in the hands of a strange on-and-off rhythm that almost feels episodic as the Warrens team up with the local police, knock on doors, venture out into the forest, crawl around basements, and collaborate with customary religious figures to follow the devil’s tracks. The basic idea gets overstuffed and overstretched, ultimately losing its clutch on the audience, especially when the plot ventures out to another similar murder case between two girlfriends and distances itself from the main event for long and dull stretches of time. So much that when Ed and Lorraine come to understand the witchcraft-y nature of their case, you might run out of reasons to care for their mission, or worse, forget what they were out there chasing to begin with. Things don’t improve much even after Eugenie Bondurant ’s chillingly witchy Occultist shows up.

There is no denying that Wilson and Farmiga have come to portray two of the most iconic figures of contemporary horror. That familiarity, down to the Warrens’ customary sculpted hairdos and old-fashioned, thoughtfully costume-designed clothes, is both comforting and transfixing—we somehow came to want to spend time with this duo and perhaps even to feel safe in their presence. But our goodwill and sense of nostalgia for the Warrens goes only so far in this third film. One almost wishes Chaves and Johnson-McGoldrick had not tried to reinvent the wheel, and instead just stuck with the franchise’s sophisticated simplicity and tried-and-true paranormal formula. Without a focal haunted house, this one just doesn’t feel like a film that belongs in “The Conjuring” universe.

In theaters and on HBO Max on June 4th, 2021. 

Tomris Laffly

Tomris Laffly is a freelance film writer and critic based in New York. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC), she regularly contributes to  RogerEbert.com , Variety and Time Out New York, with bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Film Journal International, Vulture, The Playlist and The Wrap, among other outlets.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

• Patrick Wilson as Ed Warren
• Vera Farmiga as Lorraine Warren
• Ruairi O’Connor as Arne Cheyne Johnson
• Sarah Catherine Hook as Debbie Glatzel
• Julian Hilliard as David Glatzel
• John Noble as Father Kastner
• Charlene Amoia as Judy Glatzel
• Steve Coulter as Father Gordon
• Christian Wagner
• Peter Gvozdas
• David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick

Writer (story)

• Joseph Bishara

Cinematographer

• Michael Burgess
• Michael Chaves

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‘the conjuring: the devil made me do it’: film review.

Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga return as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, wrestling once again with demonic possession and satanic curses in the seventh film in the 'Conjuring' universe.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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James Wan ’s 2013 haunted house spine-tingler The Conjuring  kick-started a $1 billion horror franchise — one of the most lucrative and popular series in recent history. Digging into the sensational case files of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, the director dialed up the dread with a thrilling command of atmosphere, a bewitching bag of ‘70s-style practical effects, a balance of familiar tropes with the power of suggestion and an attention to character that’s too often lacking in the genre. His sequel jumped from New England to working-class North London and remained mostly effective by making us care about the family in peril and share the anxieties of the compassionate couple who come to their aid.

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But even in that 2016 follow-up, relative narrative simplicity had begun to cede ground to chaotic clutter, a weakness that steadily hobbles the third entry after a promising start that will have you jumping out of your seat.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Release date : Friday, June 4 Cast : Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ruairi O’Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, Julian Hilliard, John Noble Director : Michael Chaves Screenwriter : David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick; story by James Wan, Johnson-McGoldrick, based on characters created by Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is the seventh film in the “Conjuring Universe,” and regrettably, it takes its cue not from the predecessors with which it shares a title but from the less sophisticated spinoffs — the three Annabelle movies and The Nun . Like those films, this one offers plenty of lurid fun and some genuine scares. But the grounding in dark spirituality that made the previous entries focused on the Warrens so compelling gets diluted, despite the reliably dignifying double-act of Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson .

Part of that seems due to Wan handing off directing reins to Michael Chaves, whose feature debut, The Curse of La Llorona , was tenuously connected to the Conjuring world though with none of the nuance. An even bigger issue is the work of solo screenwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick, who collaborated with Wan on The Conjuring 2 and Aquaman . While Wan shares a story credit, the absence of original scripters Chad and Carey W. Hayes is felt in the failure to build out the plot from a solid center.

The powerful emotional bond between Ed and Lorraine, and the united integrity they bring to their fight against evil have always been the heart of the Conjuring movies. Here, that element is spelled out in a sentimental flashback to the origins of their romance, echoed later in syrupy dialogue about dark forces believing love is their weakness when it’s their strength. Johnson-McGoldrick keeps hurrying Ed and Lorraine off on increasingly murky supernatural tangents, resulting in too many busy elements fighting for attention. By the time they pin down the source of all the evil — think the farmer’s wife from Grant Wood’s American Gothic with a hint of Geraldine Chaplin — the movie has spiraled into silly excess.

That’s too bad, because the opening sequence is a ripper. It’s 1981 and the Warrens have been called to document the exorcism of 8-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard). The officiating priest (Steve Coulter) arrives just in time to witness the kid going full-tilt Regan, calling for an urgent intervention on the kitchen table. Accompanied by the nerve-shredding roar of Joseph Bishara’s score and some tasty visual homages to the William Friedkin classic, the scene is an assault on the senses that induces a major heart attack in Ed as the inhuman spirit jumps from David to his older sister’s boyfriend, Arne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor).

Oddly, only Ed seems to have noticed that transference and by the time he regains consciousness in hospital, it’s too late to warn anyone about Arne, whose sleep has been troubled and his waking hours plagued by startling visions. At the boarding kennels where Arne’s girlfriend Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook) works, Blondie’s “Call Me” blasts from the stereo and the dogs are barking like hellhounds as Arne loses control. Soon after, he’s found by a cop wandering along the road drenched in blood, muttering, “I think I hurt someone.” With the support of the Warrens, his case becomes the first American murder trial to claim demonic possession as a defense.

So far so blood-curdlingly good. But the deeper the Warrens delve into the history of David Glatzel’s possession and similar mysteries connecting back to a satanic curse passed on through macabre totems and the home-furnishing felony of the waterbed, the more contrived Johnson-McGoldrick’s screenplay becomes. While the fictional developments reportedly are composites of actual interactions Lorraine Warren had over the years, the pile-up of supernatural mayhem becomes numbingly preposterous.

Ed’s medical condition sidelines Wilson from the physical action for much of the running time, making Lorraine’s clairvoyant gifts the investigative key, more so than in earlier installments. Watching Farmiga front and center is always rewarding, though as Lorraine drifts in and out of all-too-real visions of evil in her matronly blouses and headmistress hairdo, she starts to seem like a psychic Miss Marple. (It’s admirable that costumer Leah Butler honors the real Lorraine’s personal style, but it seems unfair to mortify Farmiga with flouncy frills while Wilson’s Ed gets groovy retro polo shirts and flattering dad suits.)

The movie starts seriously going over the edge when Ed and Lorraine break into a morgue at night and find themselves in reanimated company. Revelations concerning a retired priest known for his occult research (John Noble) tip it even further into overwrought genre bunkum. Are we really still doing horror movies where someone flips through a Renaissance witchcraft text and says something dumb like, “My Latin is rusty?”

Through all this, Arne seems frequently forgotten — a shame, since lean and haunted O’Connor has a striking screen presence. Arne languishes in a prison right out of the Ryan Murphy school of stylistic overstatement, ravaged from within and regularly rattled as the originator of the curse gets closer to claiming his life. I did chuckle at one ghoulish manifestation sitting up in the medical ward droning Blondie lyrics at him. But Arne’s big levitation finale competes with The Ed and Lorraine Show across town, sapping the tension from both. It doesn’t enhance the gravity to have confused Debbie ask, Scary Movie -style, “Honey, what are you doing?” as Arne spider-walks off the bed in rubber-limbed contortions amid a storm of flying debris.

In terms of craftsmanship, The Devil Made Me Do It is certainly slick. DP Michael Burgess’ camera adopts unnerving angles and prowls insidiously through one sepulchral-looking space after another, and the groaning soundscape works in tandem with Bishara’s big scary-ass score to creep under the audience’s skin. But the palpitating storytelling loses its way while trying to do the same.

Full credits

Distributor: Warner Bros./HBO Max Production companies: New Line Cinema, Atomic Monster, The Safran Company Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ruairi O’Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, Julian Hilliard, John Noble, Eugenie Bondurant, Shannon Kook, Keith Arthur Bolden, Steve Coulter, Vince Pisani, Sterling Jerins, Paul Wilson, Charlene Amoia, Paul Wilson, Ingrid Bisu, Andrea Andrade, Ronnie Gene Blevins Director: Michael Chaves Screenwriter: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick; story by James Wan, Johnson-McGoldrick, based on characters created by Chad Hayes, Carey W. Hayes Producers: James Wan, Peter Safran Executive producers: Richard Brener, Dave Neustadter, Victoria Palmeri, Michael Clear, Judson Scott, Michelle Morrissey Director of photography: Michael Burgess Production designer: Jennifer Spence Costume designer: Leah Butler Music: Joseph Bishara Editors: Peter Gvozdas, Christian Wagner Sound designers: Jon Title, D. Chris Smith, Doobie White Visual effects producer: Eric Bruneau Visual effects supervisor: Robert Nederhorst Casting: Anne McCarthy, Kellie Roy

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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Arne Cheyenne Johnson stabs and murders his landlord, claiming to be under demonic possession while Ed and Lorraine Warren investigate the case and try to prove his innocence. Arne Cheyenne Johnson stabs and murders his landlord, claiming to be under demonic possession while Ed and Lorraine Warren investigate the case and try to prove his innocence. Arne Cheyenne Johnson stabs and murders his landlord, claiming to be under demonic possession while Ed and Lorraine Warren investigate the case and try to prove his innocence.

• Michael Chaves
• David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick
• Patrick Wilson
• Vera Farmiga
• Ruairi O'Connor
• 1.3K User reviews
• 292 Critic reviews
• 53 Metascore

Top cast 58

• Lorraine Warren

• Arne Cheyenne Johnson

• Debbie Glatzel

• David Glatzel

• The Occultist

• Sergeant Clay

• Father Gordon

• Father Newman

• Judy Warren

• Carl Glatzel

• Judy Glatzel
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Did you know

• Trivia Lorraine Warren , played by Vera Farmiga in the The Conjuring movies, died a natural death aged 92 on April 18 2019. She had been a head consultant on all of The Conjuring projects, and an avid follower of the series.
• Goofs (at around 11 mins) When Ed had his heart attack the doctor told then they have to put a stent into the artery. Doctors were not placing stents, much less balloon angiography in 1981. The treatment would've been major open heart by-pass surgery.

Arne Cheyenne Johnson : Being brave doesn't mean you're not scared. It means you are scared but you hang in there.

• Crazy credits During the closing credits, there is a news interview with the real Ed Warren & Lorraine Warren from during the trial, along with photos of scenes from the movie and dialog from an audio recording of David Glatzel 's exorcism.
• Alternate versions The UK release was cut, the distributor chose to reduce bloody injury detail in a suicide scene in order to obtain a 15 classification. An uncut 18 classification was available.
• Connections Featured in Faith & Fear: The Conjuring Universe (2020)
• Soundtracks Baby Hold On Written by Jimmy Lyon (as James Lyon) and Eddie Money Performed by Eddie Money Courtesy of Columbia Records By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment

User reviews 1.3K

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• Jun 3, 2021
• How long is The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It? Powered by Alexa
• June 4, 2021 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• El conjuro 3: El diablo me obligó a hacerlo
• Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• New Line Cinema
• Atomic Monster
• The Safran Company
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $39,000,000 (estimated)
• $65,631,050
• $24,104,332
• Jun 6, 2021
• $206,431,050

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 52 minutes
• Dolby Atmos
• Dolby Digital
• IMAX 6-Track
• 12-Track Digital Sound
• Dolby Surround 7.1

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‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’ Review: Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga Return as the Ward and June Cleaver of the Dark Side

In the third "Conjuring" film to center on Ed and Lorraine Warren, the demons are getting dusty.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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Years ago, I learned that certain people will grow mortally offended if you call a character in a movie a zombie who is not, in fact (according to the supreme checklist of zombie traits), a zombie. It makes you wonder if there are other supernatural micromanagers out there who keep tabs on whether a given character is or is not a ghost, a demon, a devil, or an evil clown. These legendary figments of fear do have definitions, of course. Yet they can mash together in your head — at least, if you see enough horror films, since the movies themselves tend to blur them. That creepy face that appeared in the bathroom mirror, accompanied by a gong! on the soundtrack: ghost or demon? Decades of shlock psychedelic mainstream horror have eroded these distinctions, though in “ The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It ,” the definitions do seem to matter, at least to Ed and Lorraine Warren ( Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga ), the Ward and June Cleaver of the dark side.

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It’s 1981, and the Warrens are taking part in an exorcism intended to purge the body and soul of David (Julian Hilliard), a mild bespectacled 8-year-old boy. They’ve been through this before. The first “Conjuring” film was set in 1971, the second in 1977, and though this is the technically the seventh film in the “Conjuring” universe (which now includes three “Annabelle” movies and “The Nun”), it’s the third to center directly on the Warrens, the real-life Christian paranormal investigators who were instrumental, in the ’60s and ’70s, in lending the spooky legends of the Amityville era their aura of tabloid credibility.

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In “The Devil Made Me Do It,” the Warrens are now veterans of the haunting scene, and getting on a bit. At the climax of the exorcism, when Lorraine asks a traumatized Ed if he’s feeling all right, and he says, “I just can’t remember one quite like this,” we know something’s up. The scene presents a case of possession, but it seems as if this devil is not exactly…a devil.

He talks in a devil voice, he causes the boy to contort his limbs the way Linda Blair’s did in the famous spider-walk outtake from “The Exorcist,” and it’s clear that he’s got mayhem on his mind. But when Arne (Ruairi O’Connor), the boyfriend of David’s sister, stares into David’s face and dares the demonic spirit to leap out of the boy’s body and into his own, the spirit complies. And according to the Warrens, who are the world experts in the subject, the devil doesn’t just do that. It’s not his style. Some other sinister handiwork is afoot.

This detail is supposed to matter because the hook of the “Conjuring” films is that they’re based on the “true case files” of the Warrens, whose career encompassed over 4,000 cases. Arne, who looks like a stricken Ashton Kutcher, now has that spirit inside him. He and Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook), who are about to get engaged, are hanging with their landlord, who turns up the volume on his late-’70s stereo, until Arne stabs him 22 times. He is arrested and put on trial, in what seems to be a clear-cut case of murderous madness. But the Warrens were there at the exorcism, and Ed saw what happened; he saw the body-hopping exchange . As Arne stands up in court, the Warrens are ready to help him prepare a case in which he’ll say, “The devil made me do it.”

This trial actually took place, in the small town of Brookfield, Conn., and the Warrens were involved; it’s part of their legend. (Spoiler alert: The Satan defense strategy didn’t work.) “The Devil Made Me Do It,” shot in gloomy dark brown tones, isn’t a screw-tightening assemblage of bump-in-the-night black magic, like “The Conjuring” or “The Conjuring 2.” Both those film were directed by James Wan, and they were paranormal pulp tricked up with a skilled bravura that could make you hold your breath in anxiety.

The new film, directed by Michael Chaves, lacks that kinetic haunted-house element. It’s the most somber and meditative and least aggressive of the “Conjuring” films. It’s out to deepen the series’ portrait of the Warrens, and damned if Patrick Wilson, with his gentle tenacity and Pat Boone grin, and Vera Farmiga, who plays Lorraine the psychic in high Victorian collars and embodies her gift with a feverish purity, don’t succeed in making Ed and Lorraine the coziest fighters of evil the movies have ever seen. Ed suffers a heart attack during that first exorcism and spends the rest of the film popping medication, but what’s really causing him heartache is that he and Lorraine can’t seem to agree on the nature of the force they’re fighting. It’s the closest they’ve come to a marital tiff. The two actors are so likable that you want to give them some milk and cookies and watch them curl up in bed with the Book of the Dead.

In a farm cellar overrun with rats, Lorraine discovers an occult totem that looks like something you’d buy in the Blair Witch Souvenir Boutique. It’s been placed there — not by a devil, but by a human. Someone is putting a hex on people! But who? “The Devil Made Me Do It” is less scary than its predecessors, but what I found unintentionally funny is that as the identity of the perpetrator comes to the fore, the culprit is showcased exactly as if she were…another demon! Annabelle, the Nun, the devil, the face in the mirror: In a “Conjuring” movie, the forces of blasphemous evil are presented as “real,” but they seem about as real as the exhibits in a funhouse. Or, in this case, a not-so-fun house.

Reviewed online, May 31, 2021. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 112 MIN.

• Production: A Warner Bros. release of a New Line presentation of an Atomic Monster, Peter Safran production. Producers: James Wan, Peter Safran. Executive producers: Richard Brener, Dave Neustadter, Victoria Palmeri, Michael Clear, Judson Scott, Michelle Morrissey.
• Crew: Director: Michael Chaves. Screenplay: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick. Camera: Michael Burgess. Editors: Peter Gvozdas, Christian Wager. Music: Joseph Bishera.
• With: Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ruairi O’Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, Jiulian Hilliard, John Noble, Eugenie Bondurant.

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