Contextual Research & Inspiration p2 - The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

As well as the other two films I have researched I have also looked at this newer film from the Conjuring series - a psychological horror movie franchise about demonic spirits and possession, and unknown entities which ties into my project.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

Based on a true story ('loosely based on real-life events surrounding Ed and Lorraine Warren' according to Warner Bros) & a relatively new film, the newest Conjuring film is one I wanted to reference in my work for this project. The third film in the franchise, it is rather less scary in some ways to its predecessors, according to fans of the series and it shows the ageing of Ed and Lorraine Warren after their work against demonic spirits, according to a review on CineDope.com.

I saw this film at the cinema, and I, like many others describe the film as a 'decent watch', not necessarily a blockbuster but not a flop. This film for me inspired me to try and emulate different shots and camera angles to make the film more scary and more-horror themed, such as the flashing clips of footage and dutch angles.

The film begins with an exorcism going severely wrong. The demonic spirit leaves David Glatzel, an 8-year-old boy, and possesses Arne Johnson instead after he tried to save David from the spirit, his sister’s boyfriend. Arne then keeps encountering paranormal occurrences until he ends up killing his own neighbor, hence the ominous shot of him in a blood-drenched shirt on the highway used in the marketing of the film. (shown below)

The story revolves around the case of The State vs. Ed & Lorraine, who stand by the fact it wasn’t manslaughter but an act of the devil. As one may expect nobody believes them, or are very skeptical. They seek to find how to disperse the demonic spirit, and unravel an entire story. They find the house once belonged to an accused witch named Bathsheba Sherman (a relative of Mary Towne Eastey (a defendant at the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts)), who sacrificed her week-old baby to the devil and killed herself in 1863 at 3:07 in the morning after cursing all who take her land.

My film follows on the concept of supernatural and an entity not in the real world affecting characters. In my film I wasn't able to emulate the gritty realism using special effects as well as makeup however there is a theme in both films of something following you in some way like a spirit that controls your behaviour and takes over your mind. In my own film there is a story about two different characters that are tied by different dimensions, and the catastrophic consequences when the other spirit or entity disembodies itself from that person.

I think for most creative practitioners, the films they watch, the music they listen to, the artwork they see and the media they interact with have subconscious influences on their creative work that they produce. For instance I think that since this horror film I watched rather recently would no doubt have affected my final film that I directed myself in the psychological horror genre.

Reference list Cine Dope. (2021). The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Review. [online] Available at: https://cinedope.com/the-conjuring-the-devil-made-me-do-it-review/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2021]. David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (2020). The Conjuring 3. [online] IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7069210/ [Accessed 15 Oct. 2021]. Srihari, P. (2021). “The Conjuring 3” Review: The Devil (Money) Made Me Do It. [online] TheQuint. Available at: https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/movie-reviews/the-conjuring-the-devil-made-me-do-it-movie-review-hollywood-patrick-wilson-vera-farmiga [Accessed 15 Oct. 2021].