The film ends with Kenny staring out of his prison cell, muttering “Demons” to himself as he gazes into the empty night before him. Nevertheless, Kenny is found guilty and sentenced. Tensions boil with Phillip’s growing lechery and Kenny’s burgeoning jealousy, leading to the inevitable confrontation which sees Phillip’s death at Kenny’s hands.įrom here we move back to the present, with Marino making an impassioned defense with the support of the Harrises. From this point, we follow Kenny and his girlfriend Nancy as they move into a new home owned by Nancy’s boss Phillip Russo ( Cutting Class’ Tom Ligon), who makes no secret of his designs on his pretty young employee. It all culminates with Brian attacking Kenny with a knife, with the surrogate older brother commanding the demon to come into him.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the exorcism doesn’t work, leaving Brian still under the Beast’s control even as he’s taken back home. The sequence is hardly frightening, but it is more than a little fun (the child shouts and grumbles as the ground shakes, lights swing wildly from the ceiling, and candles spray fire into the air). Charlotte assists, drawing out the names of the forty-two (!!!) demons inhabiting the boy, in a sequence that reminds one of Lorraine sussing out the Nun/Valak’s true name in the second Conjuring film. Griffith brings his folksy charm to the role, while McKinsey radiates kindness, both creating a warm impression with their take on the Warrens.įurther outbursts, brutal attacks and levitation figure into Brian’s possession, leading the religious authorities to sanction an exorcism administered by Father Dietrich ( The Devil’s Rain’s Eddie Albert). At their wits’ end, the family contacts the Harrises, who consult on the case alongside the prickly Father Eagon.
From their first night forward, Brian begins exhibiting increasingly alarming behavior straight out of the Regan/Pazuzu playbook. The youngest child, here named Brian, reveals to his mother that he has been visited by “the Beast”, who has followed him from their previous home. This is a confrontation between the devil and the human race.” From here, we cut to one year earlier, focusing on the Frazier family (standing in for the Glatzels) as they move into a new house. Guy Harris trails behind, solemnly addressing the press with “I tell you, this is a battleground. Ed and Lorraine Warren backed his story, with an eventual book released detailing the horrific possession of a young child (David Glatzel, the younger brother of Arne’s girlfriend) preceding Johnson’s purported possession and Bono’s murder.Īfter a brief scene in the courtroom depicting Marino’s attempt to introduce demonic possession as the defense tactic for his client (with the judge swiftly striking down this plea), reporters swarm Marino for his reaction. The court case gained significant notoriety when Johnson’s attorneys employed the unprecedented defense that the young man had been possessed by demons at the time of the killing. What cannot be argued is that, in February of 1981, Arne Cheyenne Johnson stabbed Alan Bono to death and was subsequently arrested, tried, and sentenced to a term of 10-20 years in prison, ultimately serving five before his release. The questionable veracity of the former seems to fuel the hottest of the arguments, seeing passionate defenders on either side of Twitter and the like.
Seven films set within the Conjuring Universe have followed, ranging from “Based on a True Story” tales to utter fictions molded from the creative license of the filmmakers behind the flagship series. Such reactions can be traced to the release of the first Conjuring film back in 2013, itself based on a Warren case regarding the haunting of the real-life Perron family in the 1970s. With this past weekend’s release of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, based upon the Arne Cheyenne Johnson murder case of 1981, the furor surrounding the real life exploits of married demonologist/clairvoyant team Ed and Lorraine Warren (and the charges that they were frauds) has fired up yet again, setting social media ablaze with arguments either defending or excoriating the couple.