The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It - Blu-Ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:

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Movie
To coin a phrase from The Godfather “look what they did to my boy!”. The Conjuring was one of the best R-rated horror films of the last couple decades. It was in a time when supernatural horror was on the outs, and it was in a time when there was NOTHING but PG-13 horror as far as the eye could see. That is until James Wan came in and completely blew everyone away with a disturbing film that would now spawn an entire universe. The Annabelle movies (all 3 of them) were cheesy schlock that tied into the main movie, but was never really taken as serious as the main storyline films. Then we got The Nun, The Curse of La Llorna and a sequel to the original film (which, while not great, wasn’t bad either). Now we can officially stop looking forward to the next film in the franchise and just put it to bed, as the series has jumped the shark and almost gone full Friday the 13th on us.

Like all of the main Conjuring films, The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It is pulled from the tabloid headlines of “real” life demon hunters, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga respectively). This time near the end of their mainline career as demon hunters as they tried to convince a jury that a killer was demon possessed at the time (I remember reading about it as it was barely a year before I was born, and was one of the first times that I had heard of Ed and Lorraine). A young boy is cursed with a demon (as they are in these movies) with Ed and Lorraine assisting in an exorcism. The exorcism goes horribly wrong with Ed suffering a heart attack during the ritual, and the victim’s older brother Arnie (O’Conner) allowing the spirit to come into him (unbeknownst to anyone but Ed). When Ed comes to in the hospital he warns Lorraine that the demon is still on the loose, only to be too late as Arnie was taken over and murders his roommate.

Attempting to get Arnie off of a murder charge by proving he was under influence of a demon, Ed and Lorraine start digging into what happened, as this case just seems “odd” in comparison to a normal exorcism. The demon was acting strangely, and not going with normal patterns. Using her gift to see into the past and see through the eyes of others, Lorraine backtracks further and further into the situation until she comes to the horrifying conclusion that this isn’t a normal demonic possession. It’s a curse done by a powerful satanist who seems to want to bring the entire family down. The only thing is, once Lorraine figures out who it is doing this, said Satanist finds out who SHE is, resulting in a race against time to figure out where her spiritual sanctuary is so that they can destroy it, before She destroys the Warrens.

Going downhill once again, the 3rd The Conjuring film ends up at the bottom of the heap. Gone is the clever camera work and creepy ghosts, replaced instead with a typical demonic possession movie that runs the gambit of all the traditional jump scares you could hope for. It plays out more like an episode of The X-Files more than it does a The Conjuring movie. The legal aspect of the film was taken from a real life case in the early 80s (where the guy was convicted anyways, but only got 5 years for manslaughter instead of murder) and the story plays really loose with the fact. Outside of the fact that there was a guy named Arnie who killed someone and the Warrens pounced upon the situation and turned it into a media frenzy promising books, a movie, and all sorts of hoopla as they plastered their face all over the papers. This time we don’t see all of the media hoopla that they stirred up in real life, but instead we get your typical jump scare horror movie where “love conquers all” with all the trimmings. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either.




Rated R for terror, violence and some disturbing images.




Video:

Taken from a 2K master (and upscaled for the 4K UHD disc that I reviewed), the heavily stylized film is another “this is good, but never GREAT” due to the heavily stylized nature of the movie. It lags a bit behind the 4K, but not nearly as much as you would think. There’s some mild banding and some noise spikes in the underground scenes, but overall it’s a solid looking transfer. Deep blues, greens and ambers dominate, with splashes of primary colors thrown in (such as the red on the side of the retired father’s house). Skin tones and facial nuances are fine, with some nice textural details rounding out the image. It CAN be a bit soft at times, and the black crush in dark scenes can blue out details that I noticed in the 4K UHD transfer. It’s a good encode, stylized for sure, but still good.







Audio:

Warner has included a Dolby Atmos track (and a 5.1 Dolby Digital track as well) for both the Blu-ray and the 4K UHD, so this portion will be identical between both reviews. Easily the best part of the whole package is the audio track. The Conjuring films (and its spin-offs) have always had fantastic audio mixes, and this one is no different. First thing I noticed in the opening exorcism is just how massive the dynamics are in this movie. We went from a whisper to a roaring and screaming demon with slamming chairs and roaring in a matter of seconds, only to go back down to said whisper. It can be dialog heavy at times, but the pulsating score keeps the bass thumps a coming, as does the inevitable jump scares. The track sweeps wide and shifts around you during some of the crazier moments (think the ending), and the bass is just crushing and jumps out of nowhere. Great mix.





Extras:

• "By Reason of Demonic Possession" – An in depth look at the true story that inspired the movie
• "The Occultist" – Meet the terrifying new addition to the Conjuring Universe
• "Exorcism of Fear" – Delve into the making of the movie and the chilling exorcism scene that opens the film"
• "DC Horror Presents The Conjuring: The Lover #1" – A video comic that takes you deeper into the Conjuring Universe

Final Score: ​

As I said, it’s not bad, but it’s not great either. The movie got lambasted in theaters this year, but I honestly didn’t think it was that bad. Sure, as a sequel to The Conjuring it’s pretty dull and boring, but as a supernatural horror movie, it’s competently done. Nothing to write home about, but nowhere near bottom of the barrel either. Simply a reasonably entertaining movie that goes to show that The Conjuring universe has run its course. The Blu-ray is a solid disc, with good video, great audio, and some decent extras. It may not be a “go buy at any price!” recommendation, but it makes for a fun rental if you’re a horror fan.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ruairi O'Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook, John Noble, Eugenie Bondurant
Directed by: Michael Chaves
Written by: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (Screenplay), James Wan (Story by), Chad Hayes (Characters)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1 Core), English, French, Spanish, German, English DVS, German DVS, Italian DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Spanish, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: R
Runtime: 112 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: August 24th, 2021

Recommendation: Rental

 

[Asere]

I saw it on HBO/MAX and I agree it is not so bad. Thanks for the review.

 

[Michael Scott]

I saw it on HBO/MAX and I agree it is not so bad. Thanks for the review.

I think a lot of the backlash comes from the fact that it's not a GREAT movie like the original. it's a perfectly serviceable horror movie, but it's not an amazing The Conjuring movie. It's certainly a sign that the "universe" is at it's stretched limits for quality though.