Michael Chaves’s The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It suffers from the same problems that plague the rest of The Conjuring franchise – the filmmakers believe that computer generated monsters are the most terrifying thing imaginable, and that enough misdirected jump scares can make up for themes that are never fully explored or developed. The biggest problem that all of these films have is that they want to have their cake and eat it too – they make feints at being serious horror films with something important to say, but they never actually follow through with any of the ideas or themes that could give these films any weight or substance. Instead, they rely on the cheap scares and computer effects that become less effective with each iteration. While this installment may not rely on the haunted house tropes of previous films, the remix of conventions is so slight that you can still feel all of the plot points coming at every turn. If Chaves and his writers hadn’t tipped their hand so early, this had the potential to be a compelling mystery about faith and doubt. But since we know right away that supernatural forces are at work, any chance for substance or nuance is lost. This would all be fine if the film was willing to lean into the schlock, but it takes itself so seriously that it’s hard to have the “good time” you sense the filmmakers are trying to engineer.