THE CONJURING: The Devil Made Me Do It

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

July 18th, 1981 – In the town of Brookfield, Connecticut, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) are called to the home of 8-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard), who is under the possession of a demonic entity. Joining them are David’s parents Carl and Judy (Paul Wilson and Charlene Amoia), sister Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook), and Debbie’s boyfriend Arne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor). The home appears to have already been ransacked by a demonic attack, with the chandelier broken and claw marks scratched across the walls.

The group takes a break, and Arne brings David to his room to get some sleep, just as a priest, Father Gordon (Steve Coulter) arrives. Later, David hears a pounding noise in his room, causing him to scream. When everyone runs to check on him, David emerges from the shadows and stabs Carl in the leg. Ed grabs David and gets Lorraine and Father Gordon to start with an exorcism. The demon causes more damage to the house and causes David’s body to contort unnaturally. While trying to keep things under control, Lorraine sees flashes of demonic and cult-like visions. The demon uses David’s body to attack Ed in his heart. Arne grabs David and talks to him, telling the demon to take him instead, which Ed witnesses. The chaos stops, and David appears to be cured. Lorraine rushes to Ed’s side as he loses consciousness.

The Glatzels and Arne join Lorraine at the hospital, where the doctor tells Lorraine that Ed is in a coma and will need to have more tests done before a final diagnosis can be given.

The next morning, Arne wakes up to see Debbie and tells her that he thinks they should move out of Brookfield, despite not having a lot of money to their names. While alone in the house, Arne thinks he sees something moving a cereal box, but it was just a rat inside. He then notices a rotted hole in the wall, just before what looks like an apparition of an old woman (Eugenie Bondurant) grabbing him and snarling in his face.

At the hospital, Lorraine is visited by Father Gordon while she continues to watch over Ed. She tells Father Gordon of how they met in their youth, and how Ed took her to a gazebo where they shared their first kiss.

Arne is startled at his job when he sees another apparition, causing him to be sent home. He arrives to find Debbie with their landlord, Bruno Sauls (Ronnie Gene Blevins). Just as this happens, Ed wakes up to find Lorraine and their daughter Judy (Sterling Jerins) by his side. He tells Lorraine that the demon is in Arne now. She tries to call the Glatzel house, but nobody answers because Bruno has turned on the music too loud. Lorraine then calls the police and warns them to get to the Glatzel house. Arne feels more and more unwell, seeing what looks like Bruno manhandling Debbie. Arne sees Debbie appearing to run and he goes after her, then sees Bruno as some kind of monstrous entity. Later, Arne walks down the road when an officer finds him covered in blood.

It is reported that Arne stabbed Bruno to death 22 times. Ed and Lorraine talk to Arne and Debbie while he is in interrogation, and Debbie defends Arne by saying that whatever happened to Bruno could not have been Arne’s doing. The Warrens talk to Arne’s lawyer about trying to get Arne out of receiving a death sentence by trying to prove that he was influenced by demonic possession to carry out the murder. Arne goes to court and presents the demonic possession claim, leading to him being placed in a psych ward.

Ed and Lorraine go over their recordings on David’s possessions. Based on family statements, the trouble began five months earlier when the Glatzels first moved into their house. David went to check out the water bed and played on it until the demon broke through the mattress and tried to grab David. When talking to Debbie, they find that there is a rug where the bed used to be, followed by rotting wood previously thought to be the result of water damage. Lorraine goes under the house into the cellar and discovers a witch’s totem. The Warrens believe that this is the work of a cult. They enlist the aid of Drew (Shannon Kook) in their investigation.

At Father Gordon’s suggestion, the Warrens visit a former priest named Kastner (John Noble), who brought down a cult called the Disciples of the Ram. They show Kastner the picture of the totem, which he knows is the work of a satanist. He leads them down to his basement where he has lots of mementos from the Ram cult. He claims that the prosecutor on their case suffered after finding them guilty when his baby was born premature with his heart outside his body, and his wife committed suicide months later.

At the psych ward, Arne is mopping the floor when it appears that a nearby patient is possessed and sings “Call Me” to him (that was playing when he killed Bruno) before eventually being knocked down by the entity and having to be sedated by the orderlies.

Drew calls the Warrens and tells them to head to Danvers, Massachusetts to talk to Sergeant Clay (Keith Arthur Bolden). He tells them about the disappearance of teenage best friends Jessica Strong (Ingrid Bisu) and Katie Lincoln (Andrea Andrade). Katie was stabbed 22 times as well, and Jessica was never found, but a totem just like the one at the Glatzel house was recovered from the crime scene. Clay initially refuses to allow the Warrens to check into the case file until Lorraine proves her clairvoyant abilities to Clay in front of the other officers.

Debbie and David visit Arne, where he describes what he has been feeling. David knows it completely and causes them to realize that the same thing that got David is what is plaguing Arne right now.

Clay drives the Warrens to the site in the woods where the girls disappeared. Lorraine finds the spot where a possessed Jessica started stabbing Katie, but the connection makes Lorraine mimic it to the point where Ed must get her to stop. Lorraine follows her vision where she chases Katie to the edge of a cliff. A demon hand pulls Lorraine down, but Ed catches her and pulls her up. Lorraine tells him and Clay that Jessica must be at the bottom of the river after falling over. A recovery team goes by and indeed finds a body.

Debbie calls the Warrens and tells them that the demon is trying to make Arne kill himself. As Ed tells her to alert the staff to put Arne on suicide watch, an eerie screeching noise is heard over the phone. Meanwhile, Arne is given a vial of holy water by someone in the prison, and when he starts seeing visions, he pours a circle around himself.

Ed and Lorraine break into the funeral home to find Jessica’s corpse. Lorraine takes her hand and enters the connection, finding herself in what appears to be a dark basement with black candles and occult books. She finds the Occultist woman that Arne saw earlier, just as she is attempting to possess Arne into slashing his wrists. Lorraine stops this, and guards find Arne. The Occultist acknowledges Lorraine and gets a large man’s corpse to come alive. Ed pulls Lorraine away from Jessica’s hand to sever the connection and stopping the big corpse from attacking. However, Lorraine tells Ed that the woman now knows who they are.

The Warrens meet with Debbie and Drew to go over more research. They connected the curse between the two murders, as the Occultist got the totems in the possession of both parties involved, which led to the possessed committing a murder (Jessica to Katie, Arne to Bruno) before the murderer ended up killing themselves. To break the curse, one must destroy the altar upon which it was placed, and Lorraine knows that the Occultist must finish the curse for the sake of her own soul. Just as Ed tries to find the connection between the victims, he passes out again. When he wakes up, the Occultist projects herself to him and threatens him. The naked fat corpse attacks again, and when Ed goes after him, he finds that he was almost attacking Lorraine. They realize that the Occultist set something up for her to invade the space, and they uncover a totem inside a vase with rotted flowers.

Upon further investigation, Ed and Drew learn that Jessica got her totem in a box from her school, Fairfield University, leading Ed to realize that the Occultist works near there. At the same time, Lorraine goes to visit Kastner for help again. She follows him into the basement, where he reveals that he had a secret daughter, Isla, who is the Occultist. In trying to prevent her from being drawn into the occult, he got her interested. Kastner informs Lorraine that there is a tunnel under the house where Isla used to play which is where the altar may be located. Lorraine then hears footsteps and realizes Isla is in the house. Lorraine goes to find the tunnel, while Isla finds Kastner and slits his throat.

Father Newman (Vince Pisani) is with Debbie at Arne’s side, although he feels Isla’s presence. Just as Lorraine discovers the altar, Isla prepares to bring the curse to its conclusion. Ed then rushes to the house and goes to find Lorraine, only for Isla to find him and blow powder into his face, possessing him and making him go into a rage, trying to swing a sledgehammer at Lorraine. As this happens, Arne’s possession gets out of control, causing the windows in the ward to break and release him from his restraints. He starts floating and grabs a glass shard to try and slash his throat, but Debbie holds his arm down. Lorraine gets through to Ed, reminding him of their love and saying that Isla thinks love is their weakness, but it is their strength. Ed breaks free of the possession and smashes the altar, freeing Arne from his possession. Isla attempts to finish the Warrens off herself, but it is too late for her, and her demon master comes to take her soul to Hell, painfully contorting Isla’s body until she is a mere shell.

Ed brings the altar chalice down into the Warren museum (of course with cameos from Annabelle and Valak). They then join Debbie at the courthouse as Arne’s trial goes underway. Text states that Arne was found guilty of manslaughter and served five years in prison. He married Debbie while incarcerated and they are still married to this day.

The final scene shows Ed bringing Lorraine to a gazebo he built in honor of the memory from when they were first dating.

In 1981, Ed and Lorraine Warren investigate a murder case involving Arne Johnson, a young man who is believed to have murdered a man under the influence of demonic possession, just after the Warrens tried to remove a demon from a young boy named David Glatzel - the younger brother of Arne's girlfriend Debbie - only for Arne to tell the demon to take him instead.

The Warrens learn of a link between Arne's case and the disappearance of teenage best friends Jessica Strong and Katie Lincoln. Jessica was possessed and killed Katie before killing herself. Both cases involved a cult totem placed by an occultist woman. Lorraine uses her power to find the woman, who learns of the Warrens and begins to target them. Lorraine then learns that the woman is named Isla, and she is the daughter of a former priest, Kastner, who tried to bring down the occult, only to unintentionally get Isla into it. When she attempts to get Arne to kill himself and simultaneously get Ed to kill Lorraine, Lorraine reminds Ed of his love for her, and he breaks from Isla's hold to destroy her altar and break the curse. Isla's demon master then claims her soul for her failure.

Arne was sentenced to five years in prison and is still married to Debbie. Ed then builds a gazebo for Lorraine in honor of their romance.