‘The Conjuring 3’: The Scariest Scene Isn’t What You Expect, Fans Say

The Conjuring 3 — formally titled The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It — is in movie theaters and streaming on HBO Max now, and viewers are sounding off about its scariest scene. However, the scariest moment for many fans of the Conjuring franchise wasn’t any of the tense situations Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) find themselves in. Mild spoilers for The Conjuring 3 lie ahead, but nothing outside of the movie’s premise and a non-essential scene.

Looking around on Twitter, a common beacon of conversation around this latest Conjuring movie — which comes nearly five years after The Conjuring 2 — is the credits. That’s right, that bit of the movie most people only sit through if there’s a blooper reel attached or a Marvel-style post-credits scene waiting for them afterward. Movies in this franchise, which is spearheaded by Insidious and Aquaman director James Wan, tend to show photos and audio from the real-life investigations portrayed in the credits of each movie, if applicable. While director Michael Chaves and writer David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick seemingly take some creative liberties with the Warrens’ story, The Devil Made Me Do It is based on a true case. Therefore, the movie’s credits show stills and recordings from the Warrens’ files.

The story at the center of the film is the murder of Alan Bono, which Arne Cheyenne Johnson committed. Johnson was present at an alleged exorcism the Warrens and others performed on his fiancé’s younger brother David. During the event, Johnson is said to have invited the demon within David to take him instead. No long after, Johnson killed Bono, his landlord. His defense in court was that the devil made him do it, hence the movie’s title. In the credits, audio is heard from the purported exorcism in question.

This real-life element attached to The Conjuring 3 scared many watchers more than the scripted aspects themselves. One Twitter user wrote, “Just watched the conjuring 3 and the credits were more scary than the actual movie,” while another tweeted, ” just finished watching The Conjuring 3, and the actual recording of the exorcism they put in the end credits sent chills down my spine.” Meanwhile, another added, “Conjuring 3 didn’t really scare me that much but that audio recording they put on the credits scene will probably haunt me for life.”

While most people don’t tend to enjoy credits sequences — with even less thinking they’re the best part of the movie — it seems the new Conjuring universe movie is the exception. The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is currently in theaters. If you’re not comfortable going to a theater, it is also streaming on HBO Max (using the ad-free subscription tier).