The cases of married paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren have always been unbelievable. For decades their work has been adapted, and exaggerated, for the screen developing into a series casually referred to as “The Conjuring Universe”. But with the latest horror film from Warner Bros, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, based on a real murder and subsequent court case, the life of The Warrens has shifted from “inspired by” to legend.
A lot has been written and shown on the work and life of demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, famed paranormal investigators whose cases inspired The Amityville Horror and popular franchise Annabelle and whose life has influenced horror films since the 1970s. Meeting at a movie theater when Lorraine was 16 and Ed 17, the couple wed after Ed’s military tour when he was 19. Lorraine had claimed clairvoyance since she was a child, a quality Ed (a devout believer) recognized early on, and together they explored the “open door” to darkness and founded a “school” for paranormal investigation known as the New England Society for Psychic Research (NESPR).
But it was James Wan’s The Conjuring released in 2013 that placed the Warrens and their highly speculative career into the mainstream. Inspired by Warren case file “The Perron Family”, The Conjuring became one of the most successful haunted house films since Poltergeist (discounting Paranormal Activity for its more often categorization as a Found Footage horror movie). The Conjuring features a rich story of a family beset by a malevolent ghost with a history of “encouraging” people to murder and kill themselves that has now attached itself to the Perron family and only the Warrens can stop the demon from terrorizing the family to death, a rich story that didn’t happen that dramatically, not even in the presented timeline. The events in The Conjuring occur over days or weeks while the events in the case file were recorded spread out over a decade. No one was thrown violently and the matriarch Carolyn Perron’s “demonic fit” was much more muted.
Which is how an “inspired by” screenplay works. The entire career of the Warrens has always been up for debate. Where they could see the dark presence linked to a house, someone else might consider a bad radiator and even they left room for the rational explanation in their research (an introductory scene to the couple early in The Conjuring illustrates this aspect about them). That Patrick Wilson (FX’s Fargo, Aquaman) and Vera Farmiga (A&E’s Bates Motel, Godzilla: King of Monsters) are cast as Ed and Lorraine Warren, who in photos appear as the nice older couple next door, should be enough clue that the films are to be taken tongue in cheek. The work of the Warrens, if written to fact, would be a very dull movie as the very nature of their work was based on interpretation.
Except in the Devil Made Me Do It case. It was inevitable as more Warren cases were explored for film to be added as part of the growing “The Conjuring Universe” that The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It would eventually happen. The trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson for the murder of his landlord Alan Bono was the first court case where “demonic possession” was entered as a defense. Meaning, the Warrens would have to prove demonic possession is real. And they tried, they really tried, but ultimately the defense was immediately rejected and the Warrens never submitted evidence, let alone, testified.
Though other family members and others involved would recant the described events of 43 demons leaving the body of David Glatzel (who would later be rumored to be suffering from undiagnosed schizophrenia) and entering Arne, fueling him to murder his landlord, the Warrens would never waver from their version of events. Indeed the film sticks to their “interpretation” with David’s body twisting in possession, Arne’s veins darkening demonically and Lorraine losing herself to her own ability to peek behind “the veil”.
And this is what evolves the Warrens and their history from a series of films “inspired by” to the legend of their marriage and life. Previous entries have been based on the basics of paranormal. Limited viewpoints in that the cases usually only involve the Warrens and the “victims” of a haunting, older homes with quirks and often a dysfunctional relationship or family. In the Devil Made Me Do It case was a real murder with a real legal proceeding and all the expectations of scientific method and hypothesis expected. A legend is a historical but not verifiable story, in this case, the historical court case of the murder of Alan Bono by Arne Johnson, unverified as caused by demon possession.
The morality of a film with roots to a very real stabbing of a human being is, like the Warrens, up for debate. Arne was in real life convicted and he served five years of the ten to twenty he was sentenced. As mentioned, while some involved have denied the events, there are other family members who have supported the Warrens' interpretation to this day who, with Lorraine’s death in 2017, have both themselves entered “the veil.” In The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It the legend of Ed and Lorraine Warren is born and lives on in “The Conjuring Universe.”