WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, now in theaters and on HBO Max.
The Conjuring franchise has proven a durable hit. With The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It performing well, talk among fans has naturally turned to a Part 4. The franchise has set itself up to cover any number of sequels, with the supernatural collection of Ed and Lorraine Warren serving up all manner of ghosts and demons for the couple to confront. The Conjuring 3’s use of the Glatzel possession -- a real-life case that made the news -- naturally paves the way to the Warrens' most infamous case: the Amityville Haunting.
Amityville is one of the most storied names in horror for reasons that are both complex and controversial. Owing to its history -- both in fiction and real-life -- a revisiting in the Conjuring universe would be a mistake. There are a number of good reasons, but it comes down to the fact that the franchise doesn’t need to take the risk.
The Conjuring movies like to use the “inspired by true events” label. Still, in point of fact, the reality they allude to is more mundane and far more deeply mired in controversy than first appears. The label is, frankly, a bit of balderdash: tantamount to embellishing a spooky story around the campfire by claiming “it really happened” not too far away. The Conjuring movies serve the same purpose as those stories, and their claims of veracity should always be taken with a considerable amount of salt.
More serious legal issues have swirled around The Conjuring movies as well, mostly relating to the rights to the Warrens’ stories. The deliberately blurry line between truth and fiction muddies those issues further, though the films themselves clearly enjoy considerable success regardless. Furthermore, the first two Conjuring movies used highly fictionalized versions of unfamiliar cases that involved less dire real-life circumstances. The Conjuring 2, for instance, was based on a famous case in England known as the Enfield poltergeist. The truth of the cases is hotly debated, and there are grounds for skepticism, but none of the actual participants in the case died from the events.
The Devil Made Me Do It based its story on the Glatzel family, whose young son David endured an exorcism at the hands of the real-life Warrens. David’s future brother-in-law Arne Johnson went on to murder his landlord, then claimed in court that he was possessed by the demon exorcised from David. It was the first such plea logged in the U.S., and Johnson was convicted of manslaughter anyway. David Glatzel and his brother Carl eventually sued Lorraine Warren for a book she co-authored about the incident.
That’s troublesome enough, but getting the Amityville case involved simply adds fuel to the fire. The beginnings of what became The Amityville Horror lie in another real-life murder: Ronald DeFeo’s massacre of his family in 1974. The house was subsequently occupied by the Lutz family, who claimed it was haunted in the events depicted in The Amityville Horror. Their accounts have been called into question, and the Warrens -- who visited the Amityville in events that formed part of The Conjuring 2 -- are involved in the ensuing and ongoing controversy.
Add to that over a dozen Amityville movies already in circulation and the impetus for bringing it in becomes even weaker. Such an act would simply invite more controversy with comparatively little creative pay-off. Not to mention audiences are clearly interested enough in the onscreen Warrens that the franchise doesn’t have to borrow from any other. There is no shortage of artifacts in their collection, enough for a dozen more movies of their own. Involving Amityville at this stage is simply a losing game.
Directed by Michael Chaves, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It stars Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ruairi O'Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook and Julian Hilliard. It is currently playing in theaters and streaming on HBO Max