The film opens with the paranormal investigators trying to save “the soul of a young boy, and then takes them beyond anything they’d ever seen before, to mark the first time in U.S. history that a murder suspect would claim demonic possession as a defense.”
The story is loosely based on the trial of 19-year-old Arne Cheyenne Johnson, who was convicted of stabbing to death his landlord in 1981 and attempted to blame demonic possession for his actions. Johnson said the 11-year-old brother of his fiancée had been possessed months earlier, that they had enlisted the help of real-life self-proclaimed demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, and then the demon fled from the boy’s body into Johnson’s.
The film’s story is by James Wan and David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick with a screenplay by Johnson-McGoldrick. Wan directed the first two Conjuring films, then handed duties over to Chaves for the third film, citing a scheduling conflict.
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It releases June 4 in theaters and on HBO Max.
