“The Devil on Trial” (2023) is a Netflix Documentary of the one and only time someone has been able to plead not guilty by demonic possession in the U.S. They included recordings and photos of some of the first possessions and eerily accurate reenactments throughout the documentary.
The film started off with David Glatzel, the eleven-year-old boy who was possessed, telling his perspective of his possession in 1980. His sister, Debbie Glatzel, and Arne Johnson were moving for a fresh start, like most stories before possession do. Upon moving in, David encountered an entity that he said resembled a devil ‘character’ with black eyes like coal. He was pushed down and felt a shock, and then he began experiencing strange occurrences with this entity. The documentary featured interviews from all of the remaining family that experienced the possessions of David, policemen from the town during this case, priests, and Arne Johnson, who murdered his boss and landlord who claimed the devil made him do it.
This possession affected all of his family and not just David. Once the demon possessed his body, David would sort of ‘black out’ and not remember anything that happened. He would physically try to hurt himself and his family when this would happen. They frantically brought David to the church to perform an exorcism. During this exorcism, the demon is hurting David so badly that Arne tells him to take him and leave the poor boy alone. Rule number one of talking to a demon: don’t challenge them because they will win. Of course the demon took this opportunity and possessed Arne instead leading to the murder of Alan Bono.
I definitely recommend watching this documentary for anyone who has watched any of “The Conjuring” movies, since they feature the real life versions of Ed and Lorraine Warren.
Especially since this is the paranormal case that was used for the movie, “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” (2021). Of course, the movie started after the demon was traded off to Arne, so we see the perspective of what happened after the murder and Ed and Lorraine trying to prove that Arne was possessed by a demon when he murdered his boss at the kennel. I really enjoyed the third Conjuring movie so once I found out about the documentary to hear the real story I was excited. Especially when we were able to see actual clips of the real Warren family and small clips of a tour of their home. Their home even housed the infamous Annabelle doll from the well known “Annabelle” movies.
By the end of the movie, we know that Ed and Lorraine were already on their rise to fame with interviews and book deals from populars cases like the Amityville Haunting. The family begins to say that Ed and Lorraine Warren were using their story to exploit them. This came as a shock to me when I watched this documentary. I’d never heard of them doing this but I wouldn’t be surprised that someone was using their family for this reason back then for money. It seemed off to me that they saved this for the last ten minutes of the documentary. Personally I would’ve wanted to say this whenever I had the chance or said this at the beginning. I’m guessing they put this at the end of the documentary for shock factor and something for you to think about after it was over, which worked. According to Carl, one of the Glatzel brothers, he said that his parents only received about $4,500 for the book the Warrens released, while the Warrens received over $81,000 along with profit from the movie “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It.”
Overall, this was a very well made documentary, even if you haven’t seen any of the Conjuring movies, this film is still a great watch. It’s interesting to see reenactments of the story as they are telling you and of course the eerie scenes are filmed similar to the style of the movies but not too exaggerated. The creepy tone throughout the film makes this even better to watch in the dark with a bowl of popcorn. The documentary is 1 hour and 27 minutes long so it was not dragged on with unnecessary information, just straight to the point with good details. “The Devil on Trial” premiered on Netflix, October 17th, 2023.
Lauren Flynn-Miller is a third year Interdisciplinary Studies Major with minors in Journalism, Media & Culture, and Professional & Technical Writing. LF954013@wcupa.edu.