Set about half a decade after the events of The Conjuring 2 and brought the Warrens to the 1980s, The Devil Made Me Do It begins at a point where most of the series’ films peak: an exorcism. The married paranormal investigators have tried to help David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard), a young boy who has been possessed by a demon, and their work is approved by the Catholic Church. During the ceremony, however, everything goes terribly wrong and Arne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor), the friend of David’s sister Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook), invites the evil spirit to invade his body and leave the innocent child alone. Days later, the demon takes control of Arne and the young man kills his landlord (Ronnie Gene Blevins) – a crime for which he is arrested when the police find him covered in blood and walking down the street in a daze. The state wants to prosecute the death penalty on charges of first degree murder, but the Warrens are defending him, knowing he is not responsible for the crime. They successfully convince Arne’s attorney to plead innocence of demonic possession, the first such defense in the history of the US judicial system, but then it becomes the task of investigators to find evidence to support the claim.
