Review of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) by Letsgetcritical — 18 Jun 2021

It’s an absolute dud when stacked against the previous two entries in the conjuring series. The plot is meandering and doesn’t know how to share screen time with its disparate characters, the scares are intensely generic and mediocre, and the overall tone leans to heavily into wholesomeness. It feels incongruent with the subject matter. There’s this strange feeling that the entire world only involves the Warren’s and that priest that seems to tag along in every scene. The film is almost too self-aware, and appears to be imitating a diluted gist of the previous movies. Stakes never feel very high, and the convoluted plot approaches nonsense far too often to be taken seriously. And the main villain? Who the hell is this woman? Why do I care at all about her curses?

Everything about Conjuring 3 is weak and dull, and the acting is either melodramatic or silly more often than not. The best I can say is that it is competently made, and some moments were interesting conceptually. With that being said, this movie is generic horror fare, and will impress absolutely no one.