“The Devil Exists”: Sexual Predation Allegory in The Conjuring (2013)
Let’s get this out of the way: The Conjuring (2013) is a misogynistic romanticization of a married couple’s career in con artistry. That’s old news, though: other outlets have taken the time to meticulously detail this argument with more care than it probably deserves given that the story is a pie to the face of progressive values. (My favorite take on this is Andrew O’Hehir for Salon (O’Hehir, 2013), but see also Scott Poole for HuffPost (Poole, 2013) and the excerpt from the upcoming Scared Sacred: Idolatry, Religion, and Worship in the Horror Film (West, 2018).) In other words, describing its misogynistic revisionist history adds nothing to the discussion of The Conjuring, but juxtaposing these elements with Judith Penney’s story may.
Despite claims to fact, The Conjuring (2013) is a patchwork of the incredible, not the least of which is the idyllic relationship between paranormal power couple Ed and Lorraine Warren. That may be for good reason, it turns out: according to The Hollywood Reporter, within weeks of the movie’s release, Warner Bros. executives were notified that Ed Warren was alleged to have engaged in a sexual relationship with a legal minor named Judith Penney, with Lorraine’s knowledge, before the Warrens’ ghost-hunting career took off (Masters and Cullins, 2017).
Judith Penney is in her seventies now but claims in a sworn statement that her association with the Warrens began when she met Ed at the age of fifteen. Then in his thirties, he drove the city bus she took to school when they began what Judith generously refers to as a relationship. It would continue, Judith living in the Warren home, for forty years. The Hollywood Reporter implies a suspicion that Lorraine Warren anticipated this story coming to light, highlighting conditions in Warren’s consultant deal (Ed had already passed) that prohibited the depiction of “her or her husband engaging in crimes, including sex with minors, child pornography, prostitution or sexual assault. Neither the husband nor wife could be depicted as participating in an extramarital sexual relationship” (Masters and Cullins, 2017). The stipulation is apparently rare but not unheard of.
Penney’s claim couldn’t be farther from the swoon-worthy relationship that plays out between the Warrens onscreen, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga in exceptionally charming performances. In fact, it may be reasonable to claim that The Conjuring doth protest too much: the movie’s ham-fisted insistence on the Warrens’ domestic bliss seems to be in direct proportion to Ed’s alleged “ick” factor.
If the statutory rape of a minor weren’t bad enough, Penney reports that Ed abused Lorraine, as well. Penney claims that there were times she thought the Warrens might “kill each other,” and Ed is even said to have struck Lorraine hard enough that she lost consciousness (Masters and Cullins, 2017). Penney’s reported description of the Warrens’ marital problems are not much more specific than this, and is itself indicative that Penney still does not fully appreciate the horror of Ed’s alleged actions (she describes her relationship with Ed as “amorous”).
But The Conjuring’s heteronormative-washing of the Warren story is actually logical in this light. For two women in the early 1960’s, a hefty dose of Stockholm syndrome may have been the easiest method of coping with an abuser. While Judith Penney seems prepared to tackle her trauma, Lorraine Warren may still have been entrenched in her coping mechanism as the movie was made (she passed in April 2019).
The fictional Ed Warren’s inverse relationship to Penney’s Ed Warren could be read as an indictment of the man himself. In the movie, Carolyn Perron’s (Lili Taylor) desperation brings her to a lecture wherein Ed explains three stages of demonic presence: Infestation, Oppression, and Possession. Infestation, he explains, is the small disturbances (noises, voices, etc.) that introduce the victim to a “presence.” This leads to Oppression, or the active pursuing of a particular, psychologically vulnerable victim, in which the entity “breaks the victim down, crushes their will.” Then, given the victim’s “weakened state” by the final stage, full Possession is achieved (The Conjuring, 2013). In the scene, Carolyn’s face is stricken with recognition.
In this moment, it’s hard not to read Carolyn as a stand-in for Judith Penney. It’s likely that Penney would have experienced the same stricken recognition if she were to watch the movie. The three stages of possession outlined by The Conjuring are as closely analogous to a sexual predator pursuing his victim as if the parallel were deliberately planned. Among (many) other sources, the American Bar Association outlines the stages of sexual grooming in cases of child abuse almost identically, from targeting, gaining access to, and isolating the victim, to gaining their trust and controlling them (Pollack, 2015), i.e. full possession. Over the course of the movie, the viewer watches Bathsheba Sherman enact the same systematic grooming process Ed Warren is said to have engaged in in real life. Only the idealized Ed Warren can save the Perrons, as well as the nuclear family, from the demonic predator. Similarly, only this Lorraine-approved characterization of Ed Warren shields the public from Penney’s predator.
On a literal level it’s a tenuous link. The chances that Warner Bros., James Wan, et al., conspired to tell Penney’s story in the guise of a possession movie are negligible. Nonetheless, The Conjuring’s championing a heteronormative family structure has resulted in a near-allegory of Judith Penney’s account of life with a sexual predator. A number of extrapolations could be made from this, not the least of which is sexual predation’s ties to a toxic patriarchal power structure. And, of course, this assumes that Judith Penney’s claims are true (insert directive about believing women here). But between the Warrens’ version of events and Penney’s, Judith Penney’s story is not only the more probable, but also the more haunting.
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The Conjuring. 2013. [DVD] Directed by J. Wan. North Carolina: Warner Bros. Pictures.
Masters, K. and Cullins, A., 2017. War Over ‘The Conjuring’: The Disturbing Claims Behind A Billion-Dollar Franchise. [online] The Hollywood Reporter. Available at: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/war-conjuring-disturbing-claims-behind-a-billion-dollar-franchise-1064364 [Accessed 1 May 2020].
O’Hehir, A., 2013. “The Conjuring”: Right-Wing, Woman-Hating And Really Scary. [online] Salon. Available at: https://www.salon.com/test/2013/07/18/the_conjuring_right_wing_woman_hating_and_really_scary/ [Accessed 2 May 2020].
Pollack, D., 2015. Understanding Sexual Grooming In Child Abuse Cases. [online] American Bar Association. Available at: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_interest/child_law/resources/child_law_practiceonline/child_law_practice/vol-34/november-2015/understanding-sexual-grooming-in-child-abuse-cases/ [Accessed 2 May 2020].
Poole, S., 2013. Faith-Based Horror: The Conjuring Is A Misogynistic Cauldron Of Toil And Trouble. [online] HuffPost. Available at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/faithbased-horror-the-con_b_3670617 [Accessed 2 May 2020].
West, A., 2018. SCARED SACRED EXCLUSIVE CHAPTER EXCERPT — THE CONJURING (2013) AND THE CONJURING 2 (2016). [online] The Faculty of Horror. Available at: https://www.facultyofhorror.com/2018/09/scared-sacred-exclusive-chapter-excerpt-the-conjuring-2013-and-the-conjuring-2-2016/ [Accessed 2 May 2020].
