Review: The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It

Director: Michael Chaves

Screenplay: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and James Wan

Year: 2021

"The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It" is the third installment in the original story of the "The Conjuring" universe that follows the Warrens and their paranormal investigations. On this occasion, the couple investigates a murder driven by demonic possession. What they can discover about the possession will be vital to saving the affected family and trying to help the accused in his legal defense.

After a long wait, the third installment of the original story of the successful “The Conjuring” franchise finally arrives. Aside from being a direct sequel to the original story, after a good number of spinoff movies, there are several other reasons why horror fans have so highly anticipated this movie.

To begin with, there was a lot of speculation about the story it was going to be based on, where many expected it to be based on the Amityville massacre. The film is based on the 1970s in Long Island, New York, and features a court case in which it is alleged that the acts committed by the defendant are the result of demonic possession. Instead of the macabre story, it brings a softened version of it, where instead of the murder of an entire family, the crime for which a demonic possession is alleged is a simple murder with a knife, far from the level of horror of the story on which it was specified that it would be based.

Another factor that generated a lot of interest, although in this case, the opinion was more pessimistic, is the departure of James Wan from the series to leave his place to director Michael Chaves, who had an interesting debut in the disappointing "The Curse of La Llorona". I must admit that I was one of those who wrote in favor of the director in his last film, highlighting the potential that could be seen in this one, but that the script did not favor him. Unfortunately, in this case, he makes the same mistakes of the past, and one of these can sentence his future in the series since it eliminates one of the characteristics of the previous two films, which is their chilling horror.

Many of us hoped that the absence of James Wan in the director's chair was not so obvious, but the work of Chaves has made us miss the acclaimed director even more. What has taken “The Conjuring” films to the top is the unrivaled terror that they manage to provoke, something in which some of the spin-off films have failed. Chaves uses various tricks, but like in his previous movie, he can't find the key to make his ideas effective. Again the potential of the director is demonstrated, but it also shows how far he is from making it effective, and perhaps it is already convenient to work on a less ambitious project where he has more creative control and is not limited by wanting to meet high expectations.

After a long wait, the third installment in the main story of the "The Conjuring" franchise reaches the hands of horror fans, and although it hurts to admit, it was not worth the wait. Without the presence of its creator James Wan, this third part serves to highlight that he is the soul of this series, and his absence has been felt. Consequently, "The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It" is nothing more than a generic horror film, far from its predecessors, which shows all the potential that its director has but the difficulty he still has in making it effective. In this exercise the series has lost what distinguishes it; that facility to create chilling terror in its audience.