The Conjuring franchise, after that of Godzilla, is the highest box-office grossing horror film series of all time. Although this summer’s quiet installment, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) wasn’t received with accolades, it nevertheless follows the trajectory set from the beginning of the series—demons are here and they must be handled by the Catholic Church. Otherwise, the resourceful are left to alternative methods, as the films in the universe repeatedly show.
There’s a good case to be made that demons, as we think of them today, rely heavily on their presentation in The Exorcist (1973). Although demons occurred in horror cinema earlier than that, The Exorcist delineated them as terrifying monsters, based, in large part, on the premise that they really did exist. Many movies took that premise and used it to compel both audiences to watch and demons to leave. Enter Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Ed and Lorraine Warren
In real life Ed and Lorraine Warren were paranormal investigators. Early on the scene at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, they were never really made part of that particular franchise. In 2013, while Lorraine was still alive, they became the driving conceit behind The Conjuring and its sequels and spinoffs. So far there are eight films in this universe, three of them following the spinoff Annabelle’s (2014) eponymous doll, and three along the main root of The Conjuring. The base story, which follows the Warrens themselves, continued in The Conjuring 2 (2016) and The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021). Annabelle’s line led to Annabelle: Creation (2017) and Annabelle Comes Home (2019). Two interstitial movies, organically connected around the main story of the Warrens, round out the set: The Nun (2018) and The Curse of La Llorona (2019). More are in development.
This is a tightly woven diegesis. One feature that holds all of these films together, apart from the Warrens’ world, is their focus on demons. Ed and Lorraine were Catholics, so the Catholic church was their way of expelling these evil entities. Many of these films stand out by finding other ways to banish demons, beyond exorcism. What do you do when no exorcist is available? Watch on.
The Exorcist
Most possession movies tend to have the exorcism as their climax. Not only does this follow the pattern laid down by The Exorcist, it also makes narrative sense. Dislodging the demon is the goal, but many possession movies since 1973 have considered other options, the Conjuring franchise prominent among them. Let’s consider the films in chronological order.
In the beginning The Conjuring, which features other monsters beyond demons, tries to drive out the Perron demon, Bathsheba, with an illicit exorcism performed by Ed Warren. When that doesn’t work, the love of Carolyn Perron’s family finally overcomes the evil. That movie also introduced Annabelle, who got her own film the following year. In the latter movie the demon is foiled by a family friend committing suicide while taking the doll with her. Not the recommended method of ridding oneself of an evil spirit.
Valak
The second in the root story, Conjuring 2, identifies the demon as Valak—thus giving us The Nun—and also features other haunting monsters. The demon is defeated in the unorthodox manner of a female-led “exorcism.” Roman Catholicism has limited exorcism to priests who, by doctrinal decree, must be male. Lorraine Warren, however, has to save Ed by naming and driving out Valak. Unorthodox, but this seems a better option than suicide, if your exorcist is absent.
Things are even dicier in Annabelle: Creation since Annabelle has to survive into the previous movie (Creation is technically a prequel). There’s no exorcism this time and the demon gets off scot-free to allow for the previous film. (Also not a recommended way of dealing with demons.)
Next, giving Valak a backstory, The Nun finds a young novice and a failed exorcist traveling to a haunted convent in Romania. There they encounter the ghosts of several dead nuns and a demon released from Hell by bombs falling in the Second World War. The exorcist is incapacitated, and the novice nun sends the demonic Nun back to Hell by spitting the true blood of Jesus in her face. The only possession here (since the nuns are actually already dead) is their guide at the very end. This guide appears in the Warrens’ college lecture in the first movie. This method may work, but the true blood of Jesus is difficult to find.
The Curse of La Llorona
The Curse of La Llorona is only loosely woven into the Conjuring universe, but it does feature a non-Catholic banishing ritual. The fiend here may arguably be a ghost, but La Llorona is destroyed by being stabbed with a Fire Tree cross. If she were a mere ghost she’d have been dead already. This method clearly calls for close quarters with a possible demon.
In the third Annabelle film, Annabelle Comes Home, the familiar demon is joined by several other monsters in the Warrens’ own house. Since their daughter Judy has a babysitter, the girls have to figure out how to take care of a demon without the help of Ed and Lorraine. A friend is possessed in the course of the night and the exorcism takes place by film. A home movie of Ed conducting an exorcism projected onto the possessed girl does the job. If you can’t find an exorcist, a film of one will do.
The Devil Made Me Do It
Now for the latest. The Devil Made Me Do It opens with an exorcism, partially successful. The story follows an extended family—the Glatzels. They consist of parents (who remain largely in the background), a daughter, Debbie (who is living with her boyfriend Arne Johnson), and her younger brother David. Unlike the majority of possession movies, it’s the boy who’s possessed. The Warrens, assisting with the exorcism, realize that Arne, like Father Karras, gets the demon out by offering himself as its new home. Noble, but not recommended.
Arne, now possessed, stabs his obnoxious landlord to death and is arrested. To resolve this possession, the Warrens must determine why David was possessed in the first place. Then they have to figure out what can be done to get rid of the demon now that Arne’s in jail.
Reaching back into Annabelle, the Warrens pull out the Disciples of the Ram, a fictional satanist cult, as responsible for putting a curse on the family. Here exorcism while in prison is out of the question (this did not prevent the third installment of The Exorcist (Exorcist III, 1990) from doing precisely that). Lorraine has to track down the daughter of a renegade priest who has been directing a series of satanic deaths as a kind of sacrifice. The only way to break Arne’s possession is to destroy the hidden altar that she’s been using. This Ed does, releasing Arne from the demon’s grip. To use this method you’ll need a sledgehammer.
The Conjuring movies, despite this brief summary, are actually complex. Often they host multiple monsters. Almost always the main one is a demon. And when you don’t have an exorcist handy, they explore the alternate options available. In them all, however, the message of the Catholic Church remains—if you got a demon, you should call an exorcist.
Steve A. Wiggins is an independent scholar who has taught at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, Carroll College, and Rutgers and Montclair State Universities. He is the author of Holy Horror: The Bible and Fear in Movies (McFarland, 2018). and Nightmares with the Bible: The Good Book and Cinematic Demons (Lexington Books, 2021), which we review here. Check out his website. Steve has also written for Horror Homeroom on “The Golem as the Perfect Monster” and sex and death in The Lighthouse and The Witch.
