The Devil on Trial Review | Hung Jury

A basic and not altogether engrossing oral history of a possible pair of demonic possessions, The Devil on Trial has a somewhat misleading title. Director Chris Holt (who has worked on a number of dark, historical minded documentaries for television) has chosen to tell the story of the Glatzel family and their experiences with supposed otherworldly hauntings, but really only the second half of the film delves into what the title suggests: an examination of the first time a defendant in an American murder trial pleaded not guilt by reason of demonic possession. The first half gives a lot of interesting family history that’s necessary for the story to make sense, but it isn’t presented in an interesting or refreshing way, while the second half that gives The Devil on Trial its title leaves way too much on the table to be satisfying.

In 1981, 11-year old David Glatzel, of Brookfield, Connecticut, was helping to clean up the new home that his sister, Debbie, and her fiancee, Arne Cheyenne Johnson, had just purchased and were about to move into. While there, David says he saw and felt the presence of something sinister. Not long after, David began showing signs of psychotic distress that his family thought were unexplainable. With his condition worsening, the Glatzel’s turned to a pair of exorcists to cast the demon out. But while David’s condition vastly improved following the ceremony, something unspeakable happened to Arne, who was present for the exorcism and openly “challenged” the demon. That same year, Arne, who previously had a spotless criminal record, would be arrested for murder. Johnson’s defence would claim that their client wasn’t responsible for his actions because he was possessed by the same entity that previously inhabited David.

Those exorcists in question were legendary paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and if the Glatzel family saga sounds familiar, that’s because The Devil on Trial surrounds the real events that inspired The Conjuring 3: The Devil Made Me Do It. While Holt centres his documentary firmly around the recollections of the family – including a sit down with David, who has previously declined to go on the record before now – the presence and complicated legacy of the Warrens looms large over The Devil on Trial. One part of the story can’t be told without the other, and until the final ten minutes or so of The Devil on Trial, all of this sounds like a story that’s been told many times before, in spite of the firsthand accounts of an exorcism and a sensationalized trial.

The first half that focuses on David’s troubles has a lot of emotion, but not much else. It’s intriguing to an extent, and Holt builds a certain amount of empathy for a family that has been through a lot over the past few decades, but anyone with the voice of a nagging skeptic in their head won’t be able to shake the sameness of it all. There’s plenty of original audio recordings from the Warrens’ interactions with the Glatzels, but all of it is presented in a pat format reminiscent of a basic cable documentary and without any context to tie any of this into a larger picture of the Satanic Panic that was starting to grip American around the same time all this was happening. It’s a major hole, and it leaves The Devil on Trial looking like little more than a parade of talking heads rattling off an oral history.

The second half of the film surrounds Johnson’s murder trial, and things pick up slightly, but once again, there’s almost no context provided by anyone outside the situation, so something as sensationalistic as a demonic possession defence feels rote in its presentation. Outside of Johnson’s lawyer mentioning that he was a skeptic that was willing to go along with the defence and the fact that such a plea was successfully used in UK courts three times prior, there’s not a lot of background outside of the cut and dry.

And to a certain extent, that’s what people like Ed and Lorraine Warren relied upon: belief over specifics. The most noteworthy and intriguing element of The Devil on Trial is the fact that the climax of the film doesn’t paint the sometimes revered Warrens in a good light. David’s older brother Carl – who was described by his other siblings as the “difficult” one and was never portrayed in the previously mentioned Conjuring film – makes some bombshell accusations down the homestretch. But instead of these revelations about the Warrens and his own family blowing the door open, they’re brushed aside like just another anecdote. (This might be because, just like the Warrens, there’s a part of Carl’s narrative that can’t be entirely proven or disproven.) Just as it seems like the real “trial” is about to begin, The Devil on Trial simply ends, content that it has done enough to spook the viewer. Unfortunately, the only feeling by the end – outside of sympathy for those caught up in the whirlwind – is emptiness.

The Devil on Trial is now streaming on Netflix.