Editorials
‘The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It’: How the Franchise’s Latest Villain is Connected to ‘Annabelle’
Demonic doll Annabelle, a mainstay of the Conjuring Universe, gets name-checked directly in the third entry of The Conjuring core franchise. In The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, Arne’s lawyer begins as a skeptic, arguing that the demonic possession as a defense sounds ridiculous and would be difficult to prove. Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) offer to make the lawyer a believer by introducing her to Annabelle. Cut to the aftermath, where the visibly shaken woman announces in court her change of heart on the topic. That wry in-joke is only the tip of the iceberg to the doll’s connection to this sequel.
The first Conjuring spinoff explored the origins of Annabelle, set in California during the late ’60s. The inciting event for Annabelle saw the Form family’s next-door neighbors brutally murdered by adoptive daughter Annabelle Higgins, who’d previously ran away to join a cult. While Mia Form’s husband goes to check on the neighbors, Annabelle and her boyfriend attack her. Annabelle transfers her soul to Mia’s newly acquired doll as she cuts her own throat, her blood dripping into the doll’s eyes. It begins a series of escalating paranormal events; the haunted doll seeks to claim Mia’s baby.
Eventually, Mia seeks answers, first from the authorities involved with the Higgins’ case, then through a bookstore owner. The detective reveals that Annabelle Higgins and her boyfriend were part of a cult known as the Disciples of the Ram and that they were dedicated to conjuring up inhuman spirits. More specifically, they were attempting to “resurrect the Ram.” Mia later learns from the pages of an occult book that summoning up demonic entities requires sacrifice or the blood of an innocent, which explains why the cultists invaded her home to attack after murdering the neighbors.
The spinoff’s follow-up, Annabelle: Creation, traced Annabelle “Janice” Higgins’s childhood as an orphan up through her adoption by the Higgins, flashing forward to that fateful night where she transferred into the doll. It didn’t explain how Annabelle became a Disciple of the Ram; it showed how Annabelle became the Ram itself. Creation saw the Mullins open their home to orphans many years after their daughter tragically passed. They felt it’d been enough time, and the demon they’d locked away went dormant. That is until it lured Janice into freeing it, beginning a new reign of terror. That demon bears ram’s horns and the cult’s marking on its chest.
In Conjuring 3, Lorraine discovers a witch’s totem beneath the Glatzel house, which meant that young David’s possession resulted from a curse. On the night of the exorcism, the curse was passed from David to Arne through Arne’s invitation. Ed explains that the totem draws the demon, working as a beacon. Series regular Father Gordon (Steve Coulter) suggests they seek answers from the priest that helped expose the Disciples of the Ram cult, Father Kastner (John Noble).
Father Gordon explains that Kastner long retired as a priest but spent an extensive period studying the cult and getting acquainted with them to understand why they did what they did. During their visit with Kastner, he shows the Warrens his basement collection of Satanic and occult objects collected while studying the Disciples of the Ram over nine years.
Lorraine visits Kastner once more for exposition on the curse just ahead of the film’s climax. It must target and claim three victims to be complete; the child, the lover, and the man of god. The child target was David, the lover was Jessica, and the arrival of a totem at the Warrens’ house marked Ed as the final target. The latter prompts Kastner to lead Lorraine back down to his basement, where he shows her a family photo album. It contains pictures of his daughter, Isla, whom he raised in secret while continuing his studies of the Disciples of the Ram. His research and growing collection sparked a fascination in Isla, which eventually caused her to fully submerse herself in the world of Satanism and black magic.
Isla is the one behind the curse; she’s the film’s villain, referred to as The Occultist (Eugenie Bondurant). While she seems to be operating on her own, putting her soul on the line as she promises three victims to complete her curse, her rise to villainy originates from the Disciples of the Ram, even if indirectly. Kastner and his daughter make a tragic and sinister counterpart to the Warrens; demonic darkness to their light. The mythology behind Isla Kastner expands the Conjuring universe even further, tying The Devil Made Me Do It to Annabelle in an unexpected way.
The problem with filming sequels back-to-back is that, unless you can afford expensive reshoots, there’s no easy way to adjust course in between movies if fans react badly to where the story is headed. That’s why it’s important to have a complete narrative thought out well in advance lest you accidentally kill a budding franchise.
However, this isn’t always the case. Every once in a while, it seems like the cinema gods smile upon certain chaotic productions and gift moviegoers with complete franchises that feel like more than the sum of their hastily produced parts. Ted Nicolaou’s Bloodlust: Subspecies III is precisely one of these miraculous pictures, with the raw talents of the artists involved (as well as the continued support from Romania) turning the feature into an effective conclusion for a series that kind of made things up as the filmmakers went along.
That’s why I’d like to invite my fellow readers to join me on this third part of our journey through the Subspecies franchise as we look into Bloodlust and talk about how it remains a surprisingly satisfying finale to the original trilogy.
A Trilogy Planned on the Fly
Released only a year after Bloodstone found plenty of success in rental stores and mail-in VHS catalogues worldwide, 1994’s Bloodlust was produced at the same time as its predecessor in (mostly) the same locations and with the same team. This means that the movie benefited from all the same upgrades as Bloodstone, with the crew now being more experienced with the ins and outs of surviving a low-budget Romanian production and the cast really settling into their characters.
At this point, everything from location scouting to the makeup process had been streamlined, with Wayne Toth and Norman Cabrera, the main duo behind special effects, even switching out time-consuming prosthetics for latex gloves in order to speed up Anders Hove’s monstrous transformation. The titular “subspecies” demons were also once again relegated to a mere cameo appearance due to the laborious puppetry required to bring them to life.
The only real hiccup came from the fact that actress Denice Duff had replaced the first film’s Michelle (Laura Mae Tate) and was immediately expected to portray the character as both an innocent victim in part II and as a secondary villain in part III. According to behind-the-scenes interviews, the hectic production schedule that blended two different movies meant that Duff would often find herself having to alternate between two incredibly different versions of Michelle during the same shooting day – though it’s obvious that she’s having more fun with Bloodlust’s more traditionally vampiric version of her character.
In the finished film, we pick things up immediately where the previous entry left off as Rebecca (Melanie Shatner) is forced to leave her vampire sister Michelle (Duff) behind in the dungeons of Castle Vladislav due to the rising sun. This allows Mummy (Pamela Gordon) to use Michelle’s blood to revive the vicious Radu (Hove) so that he may continue his quest for the coveted Bloodstone – a magical artifact that perpetually drips the Blood of Saints.
Meanwhile, the dreamy US embassy agent Mel (Kevin Blair) agrees to help Rebecca plan a rescue mission, though they’re unaware that Radu has become infatuated with Michelle during his attempts to guide her growing bloodlust. This all culminates in a climactic confrontation meant to tie up all of the series’ loose ends in one of Full Moon Pictures’ most ambitious productions.
The Evolution of Radu
Like its predecessor, Bloodlust: Subspecies III was also warmly received by fans who argued that the series was an even bigger success than Full Moon’s other major horror franchise, Puppet Master. This praise wasn’t unanimous, however, as 1994 had seen the rise of a more modern breed of sexy vampire popularized by Anne Rice, with old-school Nosferatu like Radu being viewed as obsolete when compared to the likes of Lestat and Gary Oldman’s take on Dracula.
In a way, one might argue that Nicolaou’s film is something of a swan song for the classic vampire story, as Bloodlust combines all of the traditional elements we tend to associate with these tales into a single tragic yarn that ties a neat little bow on Radu’s story as well as the old-fashioned monster movies that he represents. The finale remains shocking despite the fact that this is the third time we see Radu get brutally killed onscreen, with the brief tease that he may one day return feeling more like a nod towards the nature of evil rather than sequel bait.
The film dabbles a bit in gothic romance and even explores the inherent power fantasy behind transforming into an immortal creature of the night, but the filmmakers never lose sight of Radu as a demonic force even when he’s willing to betray his beloved Mummy for Michelle’s sake. In fact, his twisted “love” for his fledgling makes him even creepier as we get the feeling that his passion comes from a dark and disturbing place.
Anders Hove is at his absolute best in this film, with the effects department boosting his moments of what the younger generation would call “aura farming” whenever Radu emerges from shadows like a 90s version of Count Orlok. There are even a couple of surprisingly effective jump-scares here, which is why I’d argue that Bloodlust cements Radu as one of the most memorable cinematic vampires of all time despite his humble origins.
Subspecies Saves Its Best For Last
Nicolaou and Vlad Panescu also saved the best for “last” (more on that in a bit) regarding the film’s visuals, with the cinematography and overall atmosphere of Bloodlust absolutely surpassing what we saw in the previous films. Everything feels appropriately climactic this time around (including the wonderful soundtrack that was co-composed alongside an authentic Romanian orchestra), and I appreciate how this is the fastest-paced entry in the trilogy since the film doesn’t need to waste time setting anything up.
Bloodlust still suffers from some of the same low-budget blemishes as its predecessors, but there’s so much creative passion here that no amount of wonky effects work or stilted dialogue can get in the way of appreciating the flick’s gothic grandeur. That’s why it’s not surprising that the movie’s definitive(-ish) ending would later be retconned as fans begged for more Radu.
Of course, the next entry in this series would be a different kind of vampiric endeavor altogether, with the filmmakers attempting to engage with the same trends that ultimately killed Radu and his antiquated kin. That, however, is a story for another time. For now, I’ll merely insist that Bloodlust: Subspecies III remains a highlight of Full Moon’s expansive catalogue and is definitely worth seeking out today.
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