Review: The devil can’t make you watch this so-so ‘Conjuring’ sequel

The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic. All hell breaks loose early and often in “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.” A creepy old Connecticut house shudders in the grip of demonic forces that shred the wallpaper and tear at the body and soul of an 11-year-old boy, triggering acrobatic contortions so violent they make Linda Blair’s head spins look like hot yoga. Like its superior predecessors, “The Conjuring” and “The Conjuring 2”, “The Devil Made Me Do It” was ripped from one of the Warrens’ real-life case files, this one centered on a 1981 murder trial that they successfully — and none too scrupulously — turned into a cause célèbre. It’s in the parsing of those rules that “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” hits the occasional sweet spot, if less consistently or surprisingly than its predecessors did. That’s not the only time “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do it” stacks your sympathies in favor of Ed and Lorraine, never more risibly than with sepia-toned flashbacks to their original meet-cute — the beginnings of a love story to make audiences swoon and demons shudder.