The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It

[olivermoss]

The latest Conjuring is up on HBO MAX and it's the one that takes place around where the Warrens live, AKA where I grew up. The films are based on true stories. So much demonology and exorcisms in my backyard and I never knew!

The first time they went into the woods I was like 'nope, not Connecticut'. Not a frame of that could have been a Connecticut or a New England location. I checked, and it was all filmed in Georgia.

The films are lovely in terms of art direction and cinematography. I really enjoy the whole series from that front. The first film kind of makes me want to live in a farmhouse with bed covered in mismatched quilts. No complaints, I love the look but they score 0/10 for making it look like anything could be New England. The trees were wrong, none of the houses, buildings or outdoor spaces were designed for snow, etc. It was all very southern.

At one point a river is important and I kept hoping they'd name which one! Oh well. Maybe I can find out.

Anyway, my non-spoiler review is basically ... I grew up with demons all around!

Comments

[malinaldarose]

Parts of the movie Unstoppable were filmed in and around my hometown. There's one scene that's filmed on the railroad crossing right to the east of the junior high (now middle school). At one point, they cut to the railyard office and there's a sort of map/chart thing on the wall showing the tracks and depots/crossings/stops/whatever, and while they only put the town names in as a sort of thank you to the local towns where they filmed (mostly B-roll stuff, I think; the stars were never here), they got them out of order. It was clear that they just tossed the names against the wall and left them where they stuck. It was very annoying.

[olivermoss]

Ah, that's annoying. It's neat to see familiar places on screen, tho.

There are two films I know of filmed in my town:

* The original Stepford Wives. The 70s horror film, not the weird 80s comedy remake. You can see the first office I worked in and where I bought candy as a kid!

* Deadtime Tales is a low budget horror flick that was guerrilla filmed (aka - no permissions they just filmed and hoped to not to sued) up and down the street of my highschool and then my highschool was the insane asylum in the end scene.

But man, The Conjuring The Devil Made Me Do It is just filled with things that cannot exist in New England. They didn't try at all.

[malinaldarose]

Another one I thought of later: Stonehenge Apocalypse, which put Stonehenge in a place that looked absolutely nothing like where Stonehenge actually is. Which, I suppose, is not something a whole lot of people might recognize, but....

[olivermoss]

Yeah, a lot of places are filmed far from where they are set. Living in NYC must be frustrating with so much set there. Tho, it's not hopeless. When The X Files had an episode set in southern Connecticut, they found a place in BC that looked possible for CT. Leverage used Portland to great effect to be many places, it was only funny if you know the actual locations or were upset at the specific public transit ticket machines not looking like the ones in DC.

[mistressofmuses]

I feel like I had a hard time getting into "The Devil Made Me Do It", which surprised me, because I liked the first two really well.

I should maybe give it another try.

Though agreed - thinking back, I didn't remember that it was supposed to take place in New England. I don't live near either New England or Georgia, but I would have guessed it was set somewhere in the south, from what I remember of the setting. lol

[olivermoss]

There were maps of where I grew up in certain shots. Lots of familiar place names. For me, knowing those shapes and names, it was a constant reminder of the supposed setting.

I liked the movie, but it sets up one thing and delivers another. First, it looks like it's going to be about detective work, then it looks like it's going to be a courtroom drama and then it ends like a standard D&D dungeon crawler without any connection between events ever discovered. (Find and destroy the mage's alter is a pretty standard RPG thing.)

All the Conjuring-verse movies I've seen are dripping in southern vibes. The trees, the plants, the fashion, the architecture, etc. I love it, but no. The kennel in particular is beyond impractical for NE winters.

[mistressofmuses]

I've seen a handful of movies that are allegedly set in Colorado, but then have deciduous forest as their wilderness, which... not so much.

Maybe that's what I struggled with - that's a good way of putting it, that it kinda felt a bit like a bait and switch in terms of plot, and the different aspects didn't (to me) gel as well as I would have liked. I think I got bored a ways in because I didn't want to watch a courtroom drama, lol. (And yes, that's such a standard RPG quest, lol. I hadn't thought of that while watching it, but that's exactly what it was.)

They really do feel *very* southern, with maybe the exception of 2, since it's set in the UK. I haven't looked, but I wonder if most of them have been filmed in Georgia? Seems like they offer up a lot of incentives for filming, considering how many movies I see the "filmed in Georgia!" peach logo at the end of, lol.

It's certainly not a bad vibe for horror - southern gothic is a thing, and a lot of it adds to a specific type of atmospheric spookiness, but... yeah, when you're trying to pretend it's somewhere else, it's not terribly convincing if you know anything about various regions, haha.

[olivermoss]

I can vibe with a paranormal courtroom drama. I liked The Exorcism of Emily Rose. But it's also a film where you need to be very aware of what you are about to watch. The film started to get slammed with bad reviews when it was on Netflix and people were flicking through random horror flicks.

Looks like Conjuring 1 was North Carolina and the new Conjuring was all Georgia. I love the looks of the films, but it's too bad they didn't go for a New England vibe. They didn't try at all, they just went fully into a Georgia vibe.

[mistressofmuses]

Oh same, I can vibe with it, too. While my memory of The Exorcism of Emily Rose is faint, I remember enjoying it fairly well. I think that The Devil Made Me Do It just moved between so many different story types, and like you said, didn't every really connect them to each other, it was hard for me to stay focused. (Though maybe I'll like it better on a rewatch, when I already know it's going to do that.)

So not all Georgia, but definitely skewed southern. If they were going to go for that pure Georgia vibe, I wish they would have just... set the story there. (Though I know people would have been upset, since it's based on a real case.) But I'd rather they either set the story in the place that the whole setting evokes, OR put forward the effort to change what they're evoking (even if they couldn't film in New England for some reason.)

[olivermoss]

Yeah, it's weird to take such a CT specific case and cover it in a very different aesthetic. It needs saltbox houses, snow and people dressed overly primly.

I'm a fan of Scott Derrickson who made Emily Rose. His next film is The Black Phone and the images so far have put me off of it, but I'll give it a try.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? If you're going to use something that's SO specific to a particular place and/or time... why would you dress it up like something else?

I'm pretty bad at recognizing director names unless it's a favorite movie or someone I've gotten real familiar with, so I didn't realize The Black Phone was going to be his! I saw the trailer for The Black Phone when we saw Lamb. I'm almost always glad to see an upcoming horror that's a standalone thing, so I'm sure it's one we'll take advantage of cheap movie day to see.

[olivermoss]

I follow Scott Derrickson and his co-writer on twitter because I loved Dr. Strange. Man, I remember loving MCU films and caring about releases. It's too bad that they are out of Marvelverse, but at least they can do a new thing.

[mistressofmuses]

Part of me wishes I could care about any of the MCU films, just because it's such a fandom juggernaut, but...

I didn't realize that he also directed Sinister, which was a pretty decent horror flick imo. (In terms of the "horror writer moves his nice white nuclear family to a new house in the suburbs to Focus On His Career And New Book, but... oh no! Bad things happen!" subgenre, haha.) Coincidentally, I discovered this because Alex picked Sinister II as background movie noise last night and caught his name in the credits.
And also he's apparently from Denver.

[olivermoss]

The protag in Sinister also looks to be styled to look like Scott Derrickson, which amuses me.

He also did Deliver Us From Evil which is kinda ... campy? It's another based on true story film. He definitely has his niche interests. But I don't think he managed to do what he was going for.

I used to love MCU, but my interest is surprisingly dead after Endgame. Any time I feel my interest resparking it's doused by Disney, not wanting D+, not having a vaccine mandate for working on films, racists and anti-vaxxers as some of their current main stars, etc...

I'll watch stuff with actors who I don't like, but it does dampen my interest. The only actor whose movies I flat out wont watch is Jared Leto. If there is a film I'm on the fence about and then see a name like Jim Caviziel then I'll likely skip it.

[mistressofmuses]

Looking just at the wiki picture of Derrickson, I can see the resemblance, haha

I don't remember if I ever saw Deliver Us From Evil. The title is familiar, but I feel like I never actually saw it.

I really liked the first Iron Man movie, and eventually saw a few other MCU films, but I just got burned out on them in general. For maybe some similar reasons - Disney is just so damn shitty about the crap they pull, it taints my enjoyment of anything they're involved with.
Plus the MCU stuff started to just replicate the things that felt annoying and inaccessible about comics themselves - inconsistent writing and direction, so character arcs seem stunted, SO many shows/movies/etc. that are spread over so many different networks and services (pre D+, at least) that it's hard to follow everything...

And same. I don't have to love every actor or person involved with production to watch something, but it does definitely lessen my interest if there's someone I know is just a super shitty person involved. Ugh, agreed that Jared Leto was a pretty egregious case of bullshit. I have a line for separating art from artist, and some people cross it too much for me to be okay supporting them.

[olivermoss]

Endgame was a bad ending for all the characters they wrote out of MCU. It screwed up a lot of character arcs. And Thor's characterization is always changing. I don't want to get invested again. I like some individual movies. I like a lot of the subtle thematic stuff in Doctor Strange. I've watched it a lot.

But yeah, they found a formula that works and made the same film a lot, and it's getting very intertextual. With Derrickson forced out by not being given any agency over the script or being able to get the script in a timely manner, really kills my interest. I'll watch the next DS film, but I have zero interest in Wandavision so ... who knows if I'll even know what is going on.

Jared Leto pull unacceptable stuff on his co-workers. Anyone who hires him doesn't care about their actors and therefore I don't care about their film.

[mistressofmuses]

I've seen so much meta and analysis of just HOW badly Endgame screwed a bunch of character arcs. Even having NOT been invested it made me mad! Doctor Strange is one that I didn't ever see, so maybe I'll give it a try at some point.

It sounds very frustrating for the people (involved people: cast and crew and writers and directors, not even just fans) who were invested and cared about the characters and the bigger world they're a part of. I don't hate big mindless action movies, and I especially don't hate big action movies that have meat underneath it. But churning out a lot of samey shit (to the extent that actors DIDN'T KNOW WHAT MOVIES THEY WERE EVEN FILMING, and weren't given enough information to even inform their performances... just what the fuck) gets real old to me.

Especially because it feels like I will be actively punished by canon if I do decide to care.

And I resent stuff like that - "Here's the next main-line film about the character you were interested in. But oh, you didn't watch a seemingly-unrelated series that focused on a different character on our proprietary streaming service? Too bad you missed so much!" At this point I almost feel like half their films and shows are just extended commercials for OTHER films and shows.

Yeah, he absolutely crossed a line into overt harassment, and that's just not acceptable. Or shouldn't be!

[olivermoss]

Yeah, I was actually more upset by what happened to characters I don't care about than the ones that I do. Some were just screwed over that badly. I think the franchise started out remarkably solid with continuity and themes, but the couldn't it keep it going with so many different directors and writers. The rate at which they grew just messed them up.

I want to be excited for upcoming Doctor Strange stuff, but I guess he's in Spiderman next and I really don't want to watch another Spiderman film. I just cannot care about film Spidey at all. They keep doing the same thing where he's putting people into danger because he refuses to admit mistakes or ask for help and I just cannot care about him at all.

I'm probably better off not being fannish about the MCU. I can only take people defending Disney maximizing profits by confirming to censorship rules of several other countries so many times. Those arguments are only going to get spicier when they decide whether or not to have Wiccan in MCU. The Eternals was designed to cut certain content for certain countries. IDK if you've heard about China tightening up it's rules on portrayals of men, but that country is a bunch chunk of MCU's income and it just got a lot harder to work with their rules.

[mistressofmuses]

Right? I wasn't personally invested, but I knew people who were, and some of the characters were done WAY dirty. The desire for exponential growth and profit and market saturation over telling a good, coherent, creatively faithful story is something that Disney will ALWAYS choose, it's become clear. (It's been clear for a long time, and the MCU was maybe having some issues before that, but Disney's acquisition of Marvel and Star Wars magnified it.)

I struggle with big-scale flaw things (like endangering others out of pride) that are never learned from. That's a fine fatal flaw for your protagonist to have! And even to have to keep fighting against! But once they just... keep doing that... it starts to get frustrating and hard to care. It's like another type of truncated character arc, where there's just never any growth, so we just see one unchanging character going through the same plot beats every time.

True that. I have seen stuff about China's new rules on how man can be portrayed, and... yikes. And again, I know Disney will always always pick maximum profit over anything else. But TBH, I'm not that interested in blandified "this conforms to the most conservative global views (or has a blink-and-miss-it "progressive" scene so that we can easily cut it), and is also a big commercial for the American military".