WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, now in theaters and on HBO Max.
In The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, the Warrens face their most powerful enemy to date in the Occultist. She's a bonafide witch as she uses a curse to attain human sacrifices, with the likes of Arne next in line after young women like Katie and Jessica were taken. However, as Ed and Lorraine try to save Arne's soul and prevent him from getting the death sentence due to a murder the curse made him commit, audiences discover the real villain isn't this student of the occult -- it's actually her dad, Father Kastner.
After realizing the curse jumped from young David to his soon-to-be brother-in-law Arne, the Warrens, on the advice of Father Gordon, visit a former priest, Kastner, on his farm outside Connecticut. He takes the couple to his basement where he collects supernatural relics, similar to them, and he reveals the totem they found at David's home follows that of a satanic cult he studied, the Disciples of the Ram.
However, he acts suspicious despite pointing them in the right direction, seeming as if he's holding stuff back. The fact he doesn't want to officially join their crusade is sketchy, and it also feels as if he's disenchanted with religion, but later, viewers learn he's been keeping a dark secret.
When Lorraine goes to him once more in the finale after the witch begins affecting Ed's mind, he locks up the house as they discuss the sacrifices from Drew's tome. He then admits the girl he adopted when her mom died, Isla, grew up to actually be the Occultist. He points Lorraine to the tunnels under his home, and after Ed arrives, they manage stop the sorceress.
The problem is her mission could have been stopped long before had Kastner admitted the truth in the first meeting. He misdirected the Warrens instead out of love, but let many people suffer in the meantime. Sure, he left minor breadcrumbs, but doing the bare minimum isn't enough, not when the paranormal experts are desperate and mentally breaking themselves.
It's a coward move, and the guilt making him help Lorraine later on doesn't absolve him of this, especially as he knew what Isla was doing for years. Kastner only assisted now because Lorraine came to him. Had she not, the witch would have finished her endgame. As such, it's hard to have sympathy for Kastner when his adopted daughter cuts his throat out of anger. It feels like karma for enabling her and ruining the lives of innocent people like Arne.
Directed by Michael Chaves, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It stars Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ruairi O'Connor, Sarah Catherine Hook and Julian Hilliard. The film is now in theaters and on HBO Max.
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