"The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It" is the third installment in the horror franchise
centered around ghostbusting power couple Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Unlike the previous movies that focused more on haunted houses, this case centers on a
demon-haunted child.
Missed some of the details?
We'll catch you up.
The film opens up with the exorcism of little eight-year-old David Glatzel.
The Warrens are in attendance, as is Arne Johnson, who is the boyfriend of Debbie Glatzel,
David's big sister.
It's here that Lorraine Warren touches David and experiences her first blink-and-you'll-miss-it
psychic glimpse of what appears to be an altar with a pentagram carved on it, covered candles,
and a goblet.
In a misguided act of bravery, Arne intervenes during the exorcism performed by Father Gordon,
and pleads for the demon to take him instead of David.
The demon obliges, but during all the chaos, it passes into him.
The only one to catch a glimpse of this body swap is Ed, who unfortunately suffers a massive
heart attack before he is able to sound the alarm.
Days later, Arne starts experiencing demonic hallucinations of his own, including what
appears to be a gaunt-faced goth librarian who is at first simply known as the Occultist.
As Ed finally regains consciousness in the hospital, he doesn't waste a second and immediately
tells Lorraine that the demon has got Arne.
This warning, of course, comes far too late, and while Arne and Debbie are hanging out
with their surly landlord Bruno, the demon seems to take the opportunity to strike.
Arne suffers extreme hallucinations, mistakes Bruno as a fanged minion from Hell, and stabs
him to death.
Following Arne's incarceration for the murder of Bruno, the Warrens — along with Debbie
Glatzel and a priest named Father Newman — visit him in prison.
Arne is convinced that the demon tricked him into killing Bruno.
It's at this point that the Warrens have Arne read Bible verses and attempt to provoke the
spirit with various religious objects.
After witnessing no reaction, they determine that he is not possessed.
This raises some huge questions.
How does this demon seem to come and go as it pleases?
As Lorraine later states, "Demons don't just disappear," so this forces the Warrens to
retrace their steps and circle back to the Glatzel house.
David Glatzel's very first demonic encounter took place in the guest room, where he was
attacked by a dark spirit lurking within the waterbed.
After Ed observes rotted wood on the floor that doesn't appear to be from water damage,
Lorraine makes her way under the house and discovers a gooey black substance dripping
from the ceiling, as well as a unique type of witch's totem derived from animal bones.
And surprise, surprise, it's positioned directly under the guest room.
We then learn that this particular totem is often used by master Satanists to inflict
a three-phase curse on someone.
In phase one, a demon is summoned.
In phase two, the possessed individual takes a life.
Finally, in phase 3, the demon departs.
All of this explains why Arne was able to read from the Bible without exhibiting any
demonic reactions, but it also raises the crucial question of who made and placed all
these totems in the house.
The Warrens receive a tip about a priest who's an expert on the occult and Satanic rituals.
His name is Father Kastner, and much like the Warrens, he has a chamber of demonic relics
of his own.
After seeing a photo of the totem discovered under the Glatzel residence, he knows exactly
who the Warrens are up against.
The totem is commonly used by a cult known as the Disciples of the Ram — a fun nod
that "Conjuring" universe enthusiasts will recognize as the name of the same cult from
the "Annabelle" movies.
Kastner warns the Warrens that these sophisticated Satanists aren't adversaries to be taken lightly.
As we discover later in the film, the mystery occultist pulling all the strings is indeed
the gaunt-faced woman we saw earlier — Lola, who also happens to be Kastner's very own
estranged daughter, who he raised and kept in secret from the priesthood.
At a young age, Lola took up some of her father's interests and developed a dark obsession for
witchcraft and the occult.
She's been operating within the tunnels beneath his farmhouse the entire time.
When the Warrens first question Kastner about the Satanists' rituals and ask why they'd
target a little boy earlier in the movie, he shrugs it off, explaining, "why is irrelevant."
He claims that there is no method to the madness — the Satanists are simply organizers of
chaos who worship the Devil and offer him blood sacrifices at random.
As we come to find out later, his explanation made an effort to conceal the involvement
and identity of his daughter.
During the third act, when he finally confesses to Lorraine that his daughter has been the
mastermind behind these curses, we finally discover the meaning of her grand scheme.
Drew, the trusty sidekick of the Warrens, discovers a Latin language passage within
the pages of an ancient book of witchcraft.
The scripture talks of a curse that says the inflicted must kill someone, then kill themselves.
Once the curse is started, it must be completed at all costs — Lola's soul depends on it.
Since Drew's Latin is a bit rusty, Lorraine opts to take the book to Kastner for a full
translation.
As Kastner deciphers the Latin passages, it is discovered that three sacrifices are required
for Lola to complete the ritual: purity, love, and faith, or the child, the lover, and finally
the man of God, which explains the three totems that are in play.
The first is the one found under the Glatzel house, which ultimately inflicted Arne — the
lover.
The second was discovered by detectives in Danvers, Massachusetts who stumbled upon the
totem while piecing together the murder of Katie Lincoln and the missing prime suspect,
her own best friend Jessica Louise Strong — the child.
And as you may have already guessed, the holy man is indeed Ed Warren, who starts seeing
visions of a grotesque reanimated corpse and nearly attacks Lorraine during an intense
hallucination within the confines of their home.
The third totem was the one found in a vase of wilted flowers that was sent to the Warrens'
house after Ed's heart attack.
But was he the originally intended third target all along?
Earlier in the movie, you may recall that Lorraine had brief psychic glimpses of what
Lola was up to whenever she laid hands on a cursed individual.
It happened when she touched David and Arne, but linking with the corpse of Jessica Strong
gives her the biggest clues of all.
"Ed, something terrible happened here."
After Lorraine uses her psychic abilities to relive the tragic death of Katie by visiting
the site of her death, she not only discovers that Katie did indeed perish at the hands
of her friend Jessica, but that afterward, Jessica threw herself over a nearby cliff.
This confirms that Arne isn't exactly in the clear, which is why he continues to be plagued
by the demon in prison — it wants to drive him to suicide in order to complete the task
it was summoned for.
There's also a moment when Lorraine theorizes that these demons aren't acting of their own
free will and suggests that touching the corpse of the curse-afflicted Jessica Strong may
once again give her a glimpse into Lola's lair with the mysterious altar.
Her theory proves to be correct, but that glimpse comes with a price.
The connection works both ways — so when Lorraine uses her clairvoyant abilities to
touch Jessica's corpse and see what Lola is up to, Lola also senses Lorraine's psychic
presence and can see what she sees.
Think of it as a two-way crystal ball.
This possibly explains why Lola sent flowers to the Warren household.
While it's never exactly clear as to how long she's been aware of the Warrens' meddling,
one can assume that inflicting Ed with the curse was a sort of payback, and he just so
happened to conveniently fit the bill for her third required sacrifice, the holy man.
In fact, Lola's plans may have gone down in an entirely different way had the Warrens
never intervened in the first place.
One can assume that David Glatzel was originally intended to be the "child of purity" sacrifice,
followed by Arne, the lover.
But when Arne pleaded for the demon to take him, Lola had to improvise and sought out
a fresh new virgin victim with Jessica Strong.
It's also quite possible that Father Gordon or even her own estranged father, Father Kastner,
could've easily been the originally intended holy man — but when those meddling Warrens
spoiled her plans, she chose to inflict the curse on Ed.
Either way, Lola had options, and she's clearly the puppet master controlling the demon's
every move, and she can strike any cursed individual at any time — as long as she's
at her infernal altar, that is.
Moments before his slasher-style murder at the hands of Lola, Father Kastner reveals
that the altar is the source of Lola's power.
Destroying it will break the curse and vanquish the demon's grasp over Ed and Arne.
Armed with a sledgehammer, Ed narrowly pulls this off as Lola makes one last attempt to
use her diabolical mind tricks to fool him into eliminating his own wife.
But the love and bond between the Warrens proves to be too strong.
As Lorraine puts it, "She thinks our love is a weakness, but it's not — it's our strength."
Ed breaks free from the demon's grasp and strikes down the altar instead of his wife.
Naturally, the demon isn't too pleased with Lola either, seeing as how she failed at her
task of delivering the final two cursed souls.
So instead, the demon decides, her soul will have to do.
The demon mangles her body on the spot — ding dong, the witch is dead.
Once again, it's a happy ending for the Warrens.
We see Ed place the goblet that Lola used to summon and control her demon placed on
a shelf near the Annabelle doll in the Warrens' ever-growing collection of supernatural artifacts.
As the movie closes, we get a final shot of them with a freshly built gazebo in their
backyard, which is a callback to an earlier story that Lorraine tells Father Gordon while
they're in the hospital after Ed's heart attack.
Thirty years ago, Ed and Lorraine first met in a movie theater when she was 17 years old.
They went out for ice cream and it started to rain, so Ed took her to a nearby gazebo
where they shared their first kiss.
It was the moment that marked the beginning of their undying love.
The relationship between this unique, driven husband-and-wife couple is without a doubt
the emotional center of "The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It" — as well as the beating
heart of the "Conjuring" series of movies in general.
As for Arne Johnson, while there were a bulk of creative liberties taken regarding his
supernatural exploits behind bars, his real-life story after the events that inspired "The
Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It" reportedly proceeded in much the same way as the movie
implied.
Arne was ultimately charged with first-degree manslaughter and was slammed with a 10-to-20-year
prison sentence, but he was released from prison after only serving five.
He married his wife while he was in prison and they are still married to this day.
While the ending to their love story might not be as bright and cheery as the Warrens',
it's clear that even after being faced with such a traumatic ordeal, their love too ultimately
endured.
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