The Devil on Trial

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I fell asleep watching this, not because it was boring. I fall asleep watching tv every night. Shortly after I got up, the next morning though, I figured out where I must of dozed off and watched what I missed. I very seldom do this. But this one is quite intriguing. To me, Arne Johnson and David Glatzel are believable. I have had things happen to me in my life, that lets me know, there is way more going on around us, than we can discern with are very limited 5 senses. Ed and Lorraine Warren, however, are circumspect. It really does seem like they were out mostly for the fame and fortune of it all. So in short, I trust Arne and David, I do not trust Ed and Lorraine.

It baffles me to see people rating this documentary low because they didn't buy into the 'devil made me do it' story, or they found David's 'possessed' episodes funny and unconvincing...yeah that's not the fault of the documentary? You do know they used tape recording audio of everything David said and did? If you have a problem with the 'devil' saying "you're a douchebag" the documentary didn't make that up, David did. The events are around a religious family (no surprise) in the 80s (no surprise) who claim their youngest is possessed by the devil after he likely makes up a scary story for some attention. Unfortunately his little white lie snowballs into tragedy. Ed and Lorraine Warren (notorious nonsense-spreaders and swindlers) get called in to fuel the hysteria and essentially coach David into what to do next. All this so far remained largely harmless, but it turned into tragedy when during a drunken fight over a love triangle at a friend's house one of the brothers stabbed and killed a friend. Then decided to claim David's devil hopped into him and made him do it, having of course displayed no other signs of 'possession' before, during or after the fight. Very convincing yes. Happily the courts didn't fall for this nonsense and he was duly convicted of manslaughter. The Warrens swindle the family out of the rights to their story, write a book and ride off into the sunsets looking for their next gullible victims. The documentary uses tapes and photos in the first half to put forward the story the family and David were claiming. You can find it all nonsense and think it's laughable, but those were the genuine claims being made. The second half of the documentary then picks apart the charade to show the Warrens for the frauds they are. The eldest brother also calls it all out as a farce he never believed even as it played out in front of him. He even goes as far as suggesting their mother was putting sleeping meds in their meals that might explain the hallucinations David saw, if he indeed saw any. It's not an entirely unlikely theory - three young boys would certainly be easy to manage if they all went to bed soon after dinner. The best part is David's father, on tape, slapping David and telling him to stop his nonsense and possessed David obeys and suddenly sits quietly - the devil apparently didn't have choice words for dad. It's a solid documentary and doesn't fall into the trap of needlessly drawing out multiple episodes so overall worth a watch instead of scrolling until your food gets cold.

There seems to be 2 divided sets of opinion on this documentary. It mainly comes down to preconceptions regarding the reality of the supernatural. Conformation bias will have some people getting near the end, hearing the oldest brother's recollection of events and concluding 'it was all a big lie from the start' and consider the first ¾ of the documentary a waste of time. Those people who do believe in the supernatural or have had personal experience with the supernatural will find the first ¾ of the documentary a fascinating account of demonic influence and possession. There's really no conclusive evidence for either viewpoint as we can only base our opinions on what has been described by the those who were there and the audio recordings that were made. The viewer will decide who they believe is the most trustworthy in their retelling of events. Who they consider trustworthy will most likely be the party who mirrors the viewer's own worldview most closely.

It was a very interesting and beautiful documentary. I really enjoyed watching it. When you watch it, you think you're watching a documentary, but you think you're watching a horror movie. In my opinion, this is the first documentary that brought the world of summoning into question. I want to say that this documentary was one of the beautiful supernatural documentaries that I saw. I wish they would make a documentary about the rest of the Summoning series so that the world would be more aware of supernatural events and realize that demons and demons exist just as we do. And finally, if you think that there are no demons and that the movies that start with a lie to make more money, watch this documentary, that all these movies are not like this, and some of the movies and series are really true stories.

I was very interested in watching this movie being spooky season. I wanted to watch a scary documentary with a completely different choice in mind until I saw The Devil on Trial first thing on Netflix. I should have picked the other movie. They claim to have all this evidence in the beginning but when it comes to the moments to show that evidence, we are given a reinactment instead. The kid who was possessed now has his time to tell his side of the story ..and we barely hear the actual story from him. If they had just shown the audio of the really juicy stuff, it would have been a better movie. I didn't feel convinced that these things were related to possession and seemed more like a scam. The movie felt disorganized in trying to not be bias? I personally didn't like the editing style and I'm not really sure what the goal was at the end of this film, but I just didn't feel satisfied.

Demonic Possessions, Ghosts, Paranormal ..... how many of us , (normal people like me who watched a movie and came to write a review) can actually say that they have experienced any sort of anything even relatively close to paranormal . Its just all the stories that goes on from one mouth to other ear. I liked Conjuring, I'm a horror fan. I won't take anything from the Hollywood aspect of it, but its really disturbing to see and know that how some people like The Warrens weave a so called fabricated reality into the minds of simple people just so that The Warrens can have their fame. And to even think that these people were supposed to be a ray of hope to someone who is unable, that's the most disturbing thing about the whole ordeal. I don't know why this movie isn't getting the sensational response it so much deserve , forget the acting , forget the verdict, forget the guilty....just show the world what preys and predators look like in actual downright basic form. A man was murdered but somehow someone came up with an idea to make money of the dead. I'm giving this rating solely for the sole purpose of what and who The Warrens were actually were. This is a must watch for people like me , who craves for every aspect of something and who are not satisfied until the end.