The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021): Cast, Plot and Ending Explained

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021), directed by Michael Chaves, opens in 1981 in Brookfield, Connecticut, where Ed and Lorraine Warren help with the exorcism of eight-year-old David Glatzel. During the ritual, Arne Cheyne Johnson, the boyfriend of David's sister Debbie, challenges the demon and tells it to take him instead. The possession passes to Arne, and Ed suffers a heart attack and is hospitalized. Soon afterward Arne is not himself, and he kills his landlord.

The Warrens then set out to prove that the killing was caused by demonic possession, which turns a haunting story into a defense case. That is a real change of shape for the saga. The Conjuring (2013) kept the Warrens inside one Rhode Island farmhouse, while this film follows them out of the house and toward a courtroom.

Is it a true story? One detail is tied to real life: Ed Warren's heart attack at the start of the film is based on something that happened in real life. Everything paranormal in it is a claim made by the Warrens and dramatized by the filmmakers, and none of it is established as fact. For the wider background, see the Conjuring true story guide.

Within the saga this is the third main film, after The Conjuring 2 and before The Conjuring: Last Rites. If you are planning a marathon, the Conjuring movies in order guide shows where it sits.

The full plot follows Arne's arrest, the Warrens' search for a living occultist, and a final fight over a cursed altar, so everything from here on is a spoiler.

After Arne stabs his landlord to death he is arrested, and the Warrens join his defense. They argue that he was possessed when he killed, which the film frames as a first in an American murder trial. In the Glatzel house they find a witch's totem, and it suggests that the curse did not simply fall on the family at random. A living occultist is behind it.

Their research leads to Danvers, Massachusetts, where a similar killing took place. A possessed woman named Jessica had killed a person and then died. That trail ends at Isla, the daughter of a former priest named Kastner (played by John Noble). Isla has been using dark magic, and she has killed her father. She then curses Ed and Arne.

Ed is pulled under the curse. Lorraine reminds him of their love, he breaks free, and he destroys the altar, which saves Arne. Isla is killed by the demonic force she called up.

The courtroom outcome is less tidy than the supernatural one. Arne is still convicted of manslaughter and serves five years, and Debbie marries him in prison. In the last beat, Ed places a cup from the altar in the Warrens' artifact room, beside other cursed items.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It opened in the UK on May 28, 2021, in Australia on June 3, 2021, and in the US on June 4, 2021. The US date is confirmed and the UK and Australian dates are reported, all per Box Office Mojo. The film is rated R in the US, 15 in the UK and MA15+ in Australia.

The film ran 111 minutes in theaters. On a $40 million budget it earned about $65.6 million in the US and Canada and about $140.8 million internationally, for roughly $206 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo and The Numbers.

That makes it the lowest worldwide total of the four main films. The Conjuring (2013), The Conjuring 2 and The Conjuring: Last Rites all finished ahead of it, and Last Rites finished highest of the four. Warner Bros said in July 2021, after this film's global total passed $196 million, that the Conjuring franchise had crossed $2 billion worldwide. Our Conjuring box office page breaks down every film's gross.

The ending settles the supernatural fight and the legal one in different ways: Ed and Lorraine's bond breaks the curse, but the court still convicts Arne. Spoilers follow.

How does the curse end? Lorraine's love pulls Ed out of the curse, and he destroys the occultist's altar. That frees Arne, and Isla dies from the evil she summoned. The film treats the Warrens' marriage as a weapon, and it could be argued that the whole saga leans on that idea. It is also a callback with a twist. In The Conjuring 2, Lorraine's séance at the Amityville house gives her a vision of Ed being impaled, so the series has been dangling Ed's mortality in front of us for a while. Here his heart attack in the opening exorcism, which the filmmakers say is based on something that happened in real life, finally makes the threat physical, and Lorraine is the one who has to hold the line.

Why does Arne go to prison anyway? The court convicts him of manslaughter, he serves about five years, and Debbie marries him in prison. In my opinion this is the most interesting choice in the script, because the film does not give the Warrens a legal victory in the way a courtroom thriller usually would. The demon is defeated, but the sentence stands. The film sets up the Warrens' defense as a first in an American murder trial, so the verdict reads as a refusal to let the supernatural settle a human case. Compare that with The Conjuring (2013), where the Perron family's problem ends with the haunting. Here the haunting ends and the consequences remain.

What is the cup in the final shot? Ed places a cup from the altar in the Warrens' artifact room, next to cursed items from the earlier films, such as the Annabelle doll. That room is the connective tissue of the saga. In Annabelle Comes Home the Warrens lock the doll in a blessed glass case in the artifacts room at their home and leave Judy and her babysitter there, so this closing image works as a quiet nod to the spin-offs. It also points forward, since Last Rites later brings back an antique mirror as a cursed object in the Warrens' world. For the doll itself, see our Annabelle doll guide.

Does the ending hold up? Perhaps the weakest part is Isla herself, a villain who arrives late and dies quickly, compared with the long build of Valak in The Conjuring 2. The strongest part is the human cost left on screen. If you enjoy the series for its scares alone, the finale may feel quieter than the first two, and that is a fair complaint.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia, with principal photography beginning on June 3, 2019. The story is set in Brookfield, Connecticut, and later in Danvers, Massachusetts, but the filming took place in Atlanta.

Additional photography planned for April 2020 was delayed by COVID-19. Reshoots later changed the film's supporting cast: a demonic character played by Davis Osbourne was removed, and John Noble's role as Father Kastner was expanded.

Ed Warren's heart attack at the start of the film is based on something that happened in real life.

The contorted body movements in the exorcism were done in camera. Chaves said a performer carried out the contortions on set, and Julian Hilliard's face was placed on her body digitally. It is a practical stunt first, with visual effects as the finishing touch, which fits the series' habit of building scares on physical performance.

During reshoots Chaves removed a demonic character played by Davis Osbourne, and expanded John Noble's role as Father Kastner.

After this film's global total passed $196 million, Warner Bros said in July 2021 that the Conjuring franchise had passed $2 billion worldwide. The comparison shows the franchise's scale: this film earned less than The Conjuring (2013) or The Conjuring 2, yet the saga as a whole kept growing, with The Nun II and Last Rites following.