There are now 8 movies in the Conjuring Universe. At the top, there's the unbridled terror of the original. At the bottom, the uninspired Annabelle. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is in the middle. Scary without ever attaining nightmarish levels and unsure of how big its story should be, it’s saved by good performances and your emotional ties to characters.

Five years after the events of The Conjuring 2, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are helping banish the demon inside 8-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard). A few days afterward Arne Cheyenne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor) - who was present during the exorcism - murders his landlord. The creature made David do it but his "not guilty" plea only stands a chance if the Warrens can prove what happened to him.

Unlike the other installments, this is not a haunted house movie; it’s a mystery. It also doesn’t introduce a new monster the way other “Conjuring” films did. This does open up new possibilities for the universe, however. There are loads of creepy artifacts inside the Warren’s home. They can’t all have been obtained through the same circumstances. This film shows there's room for variety.

With no “Nun”, “Annabelle” or “Crooked Man” to dazzle the audience, “The Devil Made Me Do It” does lack identity. You’d expect the couple’s investigation to coincide with the legal proceedings, for the evidence to make Arne’s lawyer question their faith, but that’s not this film at all. Writer David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick wants to maintain the pretense that everything we’re seeing is real so the courtroom stuff is practically non-existent. He also wants to measure up to the big moments we saw in the other films so there's a disconnect in the middle. The posters say this is “The demonic case that shocked America”. I’d argue everything BEFORE Arne Johnson goes to trial is far more jaw-dropping than any courtroom argument.

If this weren't a movie whose characters we're already attached to, it would be fine but forgettable. Thankfully, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga are so comfortable with each other they feel like a real couple. When director Michael Chaves takes a break from the scares to show them as a team, he doubles your emotional investment. Every scene with Ed in peril is particularly intense. He's looking mighty ragged. You get the nagging suspicion he’s only one attack away from death.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is a letdown because it doesn’t have the same kind of memorable, spine-tingling frights as its predecessors. It does have a strong conclusion however and the way it opens up the series to more innovation makes it an exciting change of pace. The love story between Ed and Lorraine Warren is one of the film’s strong points, as is the camerawork, lighting, and cinematography during the biggest scenes. For fans, it offers enough "pull up the covers" moments to be worth seeing the one time. (June 7th, 2021)