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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nI blinked and suddenly the \u201cConjuring Universe\u201d got up to eight installments. These movies are usually tied together by the inclusion of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), and always tied together by their love of jump scares and curious decision to include just enough graphic violence to warrant an R rating. Unique to this movie is that the Warrens are more physically involved than usual, and that it comes barely two years after Lorraine Warren\u2019s real-life death at the age of 92. This film is set in 1981, and it\u2019s hard to take her peril seriously when we know she has to live to die two years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The film tells the \u201ctrue\u201d story of Arne Johnson (Ruairi O\u2019Connor), the boyfriend of Debbie Glatzel (Sarah Catherine Hook), who attended the Warrens\u2019 exorcism of Debbie\u2019s younger brother David (Julian Hilliard). The demon possessing young David is able to overpower Ed, and sensing that the Warrens cannot win, Arne offers up himself as a host for the demon if it will leave David alone. All of a sudden, David is no longer possessed. The only one who knew about Arne\u2019s offer is Ed, and he\u2019s in a coma. As for Arne, either the demon makes him forget his offer or he\u2019s too asymptomatic of demon possession to think he\u2019s in danger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Actually, it isn\u2019t Arne who\u2019s in danger so much as his landlord, whom Arne stabs to death. He\u2019s soon arrested and claims that he wasn\u2019t acting of his own free will. Lorraine and the recently-revived Ed know about Arne\u2019s recent brush with the forces of evil and believe that something made him commit the murder. Maybe not the Devil of the title, but something. They find a haunted totem under the Glatzel house and take it to an expert on the occult (John Noble) who tells them that they\u2019re risking everything by meddling with these forces. They go to the police, who will only take them seriously if Lorraine can use her psychic abilities to solve a missing persons case first. She puts the \u201creal\u201d detectives\u2019 work to shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since there\u2019s hardly any of the creepy doll Annabelle or nun-like demon Valek in this movie (the single funniest moment is an offscreen encounter with Annabelle), it has to rely on the charisma and charm of the Warrens to make it the least bit interesting. Wilson and Farmiga put their backs into it, but they can only give so much life to this dull material. Even John Noble, who I loved on \u201cFringe,\u201d can\u2019t do anything new with his character, which we get in one form or another in all of these movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you\u2019re a fan of the Conjuring Universe, you\u2019ll probably \u201clike\u201d \u201cThe Devil Made Me Do It.\u201d You probably won\u2019t \u201clove\u201d it, because it doesn\u2019t do enough to stand out, but it does hit all your favorite stylistic beats. I don\u2019t generally \u201clike\u201d these movies, so to me, this is just a rehash of a formula that wasn\u2019t working particularly well in the first place. This movie only exists to add another chapter to the franchise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: C-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It\u201d is playing in theaters and available on HBO Max. The film is rated R for terror, violence, and some disturbing images. Its running time is 112 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver NOTE: One reason why I didn\u2019t find this movie very scary is that I was on vacation this past weekend and had to settle for watching this… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":49109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[369],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49108"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49110,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49108\/revisions\/49110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}