With a ham-fisted script and over reliance on tropes, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is a jumbled and messy eighth installment of the highly successful Conjuring franchise. Directed by Michael Chaves, the latest film’s focus on the aging marriage of the series’ demonologist protagonists is admirable, but its marital insights and subtle humor fail to develop and compensate for the rote and poorly executed horror sequences.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It follows the latest excursion of Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, respectively), a trip to Connecticut where the couple documents the exorcism of a recently possessed boy, David Glatzel (an on-edge Julian Hilliard), who contorts, flips and growls in Linda Blair fashion. Arne (a one-note Ruairi O’Connor), boyfriend to David’s sister Debbie (a worried Sarah Catherine Hook), offers himself to David’s possessor, and Ed witnesses the demon leaving David and entering Arne, who is less expressive in his new possessed person. As Ed recovers at a nearby hospital, the Warrens work to save Arne, who is put on trial for a murder he commits while possessed. Working with Arne’s defense team, the Warrens probe deeper to blame the murder on demonic possession, the first legal defense of its kind in U.S. history. 

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Leading viewers through a myriad of New England towns, satanic rituals and occultist groups, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It locates domesticity for the Warrens within their nomadic lifestyle, often framing their way of life as a hindrance to their marriage. Consider the scene when Lorraine, who can witness past deaths of the possessed, helps solve a local murder case in Massachusetts. Ed discourages his wife from exercising her powers, aiming to save her from the emotional turmoil of witnessing demons carry out killings, scenes which often haunt her throughout the film. 

It’s in those moments of grace and sincerity that The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It shines best, and its moments of humor serve as an escape from the overwhelmingly drab and oftentimes monotone storyline (when the Warrens are not fighting devil worshippers, they sarcastically quip about their marriage to detectives, priests and various townspeople).

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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It progresses to reveal the source of Arne’s possessor, and as the Warrens’ Christian heroism and unflinching devotion to combating evil goes unquestioned, the couple plan for battle at an altar from where a villainous occultist operates. Unlike its unique take on the marriage of its demon hunting heroes, the horror film’s raison d’être falls incredibly flat as the Warrens’ investigation into the mythology of local cults is hard to follow and considerably boring. 

When the Warrens face the occultist in the climax, the sordid villain is framed as a follower of satanic philosophy and such characterization succumbs to the trope of Satanists as nihilistic agents of chaos, whose sense of destruction is juxtaposed with morally righteous Christians fighting to restore order. Because of these tropes and lack of formal invention — James Wan’s electrifying Steadicam shots of interiors as well as his skillful rendition of atmosphere from previous installments are sorely missed — the stakes of the Warrens’ fight feel pathetically low. Despite the onscreen suffering of the victims of possession, the images of a young Ed and Lorraine meeting outside a movie theater — shown earlier in the film — instead circulate the mind’s eye, especially in the loud and repetitive exorcism scenes. 

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Though the producers would deem The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It a success — it has already eclipsed the opening weekend box office performance of the much superior A Quiet Place Part II — the film is anything but. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It fails to meet its potential as a thoughtful thriller that explores possession on both the supernatural and human front, with the tale of a marriage tired from the travails of restoring the domestic bliss of possessed families undeveloped and mostly exorcised.

Mo Muzammal is a freelance film critic based in Southern California. His interests include Pakistani Cinema, Parallel Cinema and film theory.