“The Conjuring: Last Rites” is out right now. The film — which is supposed to be the last installment in the popular horror franchise — has grossed nearly $500 million worldwide and counting.
Each of the films are based on famous alleged hauntings and possessions that real-life protagonists Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated.
Jeff Belanger, host of the New England Legends podcast and author of “Wicked Strange,” didn’t just write about the couple — he’s spent a lot of time with them and some of the people they helped.
GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath sat down with Belanger for this segment of “Weird New England.” What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Arun Rath: I desperately wanted to talk with you about the Warrens because I’m familiar with a lot that you’ve written with them over the years. But I didn’t realize, Jeff, how far back it went.
Tell us about how old you were and where you were when you first came into contact with these famous demonologists.
Jeff Belanger: I was 13 years old. I grew up in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, which is the town next to Monroe where Ed and Lorraine Warren lived for most of their adult life. And so I knew them when I was a kid. Lorraine went to our church, I’d go see them speak at libraries and things like that.
I can tell you they’re way more famous today than they ever were back then thanks to this very successful movie franchise.
Rath: I was kind of excited when “The Conjuring” came out because it reminded me of all these stories that I followed myself as a young man.
Let’s talk first about the events that inspired the first film, “The Conjuring,” that was released in 2013. The actual events took place in Rhode Island in the 1970s — and you actually talked with basically everybody involved.
Belanger: It was so weird to watch that film, and I love horror movies as much as the next person —
Rath: Probably more!
Belanger: Yeah, probably more. But it was weird to watch that movie and know every single person being portrayed in the film.
I knew Ed and Lorraine Warren since I was a kid. I knew the whole Perron family. I had interviewed them about their experiences there.
And so watching the film — I even caught Lorraine’s cameo. The camera pans across the audience at one point, and I’m like, “That’s Lorraine,” she’s actually got a little second in the film.
And so, watching it, I was like, “Wow, they never discussed this case when I was young.” They talked about Amityville, they talked about the famous cases they worked on — Annabelle the doll.
But they never talked about this case, probably because what happened in real life is remarkably nothing like the movie and not all that interesting of a case.
The movie was great! But the real case, not so much.
Rath: And you talked with the family in this, right? Was it the mother who was possessed?
Belanger: So in 1971, the Perron family moved in to this beautiful farmhouse. And I’ve been in it — I’ve been in it multiple times. When you step inside, it’s like stepping back into the 1700s. It’s very well kept. It’s a beautiful old home, historic home.
And so when the Perrons moved in, on the day they moved in, they explained how the former owner was still moving out. Literally their truck’s pulling in and he’s still trying to get the last of his stuff out. Not ideal, but everybody was trying to be patient that day.
Andrea, the oldest sister, said they were bringing boxes from the car and the van into the kitchen. And at one point, there was a gentleman standing in the kitchen with a brown shirt and brown pants. She just assumed he was with the former owner. And then her little sister went in with another box carrying stuff in. She said that man just slowly vanished.
And so, pretty much instantly, they knew they were going to be living in a haunted house.
Roger Perron, the dad, told me the last thing that the owner said to him as he was finally getting out of the house on their move-in day is: “Hey, Roger, leave the lights on at night. That’s my advice.” And then he left.
What happened next was this family moved into this very old historic home and realized they were living with ghosts.
Rath: You said the actual story here was probably not the most exciting of the cases that the Warrens investigated. Of the films, which one would you say is the most compelling and probably closest to what was the most compelling case?
Belanger: Probably “The Devil Made Me Do It” [the 2021 film], although that took a lot of liberties as well.
“The Devil Made Me Do It” case was about the only murder in the history of Brookfield, Connecticut — which is incredible. I mean, a town that’s been around for centuries only had one murder.
The Warrens got involved because — if something supernatural is going on in Brookfield, Brookfield’s just one town away in the other direction from where I grew up. So if something supernatural’s going on, you call the Warrens.
This case, it was so sort of disjointed. This family was plagued and the 18-year-old boyfriend of the daughter was visiting. Something weird happened in the house. Eventually he moves out, gets his own place, and the Warrens sort of connected the dots when this violent act happened.
He had been drinking with his landlord and his girlfriend. A fight ensued, someone pulled out a knife and the man was killed in a drunken brawl. And that should have been the end of the story, except Ed Warren said, “No, no, no, he was possessed. He was under demonic possession, shouldn’t be held accountable for what he went through.”
If this was a normal drunken murder case, it would have made the local news for a couple of weeks; he would have been sentenced to jail for a certain amount of time; and that would have been the end of it. Except Ed Warren said, “Look, you put your hand on the Bible in court and swear before God that you’re telling the truth. If the court believes in God, the court must believe in the devil. And we want to put the devil on trial, prove his life’s work and basically say this guy was under demonic possession.”
Thankfully, the judge said, “I will have none of that. This is not 1692 in Salem, so we’re only going to talk about the facts of the case.” And ultimately, he was convicted for manslaughter and served five years in jail.
Rath: That was the first time demonic possession was attempted to be used as defense in a murder trial, right?
Belanger: Well, the first time in centuries.
Think about it: Had the judge allowed that, every single person that has been accused of murder would have used the same argument across this great nation. Everybody would have said it. Because honestly, I mean, I’ve spoken with people that have committed horrible acts, and they’ll tell you: “I was not in my right mind at the moment. I lost it.”
They still should be held accountable for their actions, of course. But yeah, it’s not a sane thing in general to take someone’s life — especially, you know, in a moment of anger.
Rath: In this case, in particular, which was probably the most controversial of them because of the murder trial, a lot of people have been critical of the Warrens.
There’s actually a Netflix documentary about this called “The Devil on Trial,” which includes those non-paranormal explanations for the events. But also implying that the Warrens were exploiting the situation.
Belanger: No question they were exploiting the situation. They loved the spotlight, they loved the media. They would invite journalists into their investigations and things like that. The company line, and I’ve literally heard Ed say it: “Of course I call in the media. I want to expose the devil. I want to expose that this is real.”
On the upside of that was that: They were taking something that was very much on the fringe and allowing people to sort of talk about it. When it’s in the news, when it’s the media, people could talk about it.
Today we don’t think much about that because there’s been so many paranormal reality shows that it has sort of normalized the discussion, which is great. But back then: Absolutely, there were times when I would say they were exploiting. No question.
Rath: I’m curious to hear from you as someone who has been in this in such depth. Does the fact of maybe being promotional or taking some liberties in that way, does that undermine what the Warrens did? Would one be right to conclude that it’s all made up?
Belanger: See, that’s the problem, right? So as soon as you find a crack in the armor, you think it’s all not real.
I don’t know. I mean, I really don’t know.
Whenever someone tells me a story that is interesting or compelling: If I wasn’t there when it happened, the best I can do for you is say, “Well, I believe that you believe. I believe this is your experience, and that’s how you interpreted it.”
If someone shows you a video clip or something, the first thing I try to do is explain it away.
And Ed has shown me many video clips over the years. Some I was just like, “Ed, you literally pan the camera in front of the sun. The lens was completely overwhelmed, and you’re freezing it frame by frame and looking for basically shapes in the clouds.” And so some of that stuff I just personally dismissed.
But he also showed me video — I remember one. There’s a place called Union Cemetery in Easton, Connecticut. And the White Lady of Easton is still a very famous ghost that’s said to haunt that graveyard. And Ed was parked right at the gate.
He gets the camera rolling. And this white wispy shape — I would even go so far as to call it feminine. I mean, you couldn’t make out any features, but it moved around the headstones, came toward the camera and then got sucked down into the ground. And it was maybe six seconds of video, but that’s a long time.
And I remember looking at that going, “Man, Ed, if Spielberg didn’t help you with that, I don’t know what to make of it. I mean, that’s really something compelling.”
Sometimes the stuff they produced or talked about or showed the evidence they collected, I found super compelling. But some of it — factually, I think sometimes he was all over the map.
So yeah, I get it. I get how skeptics would say, well, if you’re wrong about this, you’re wrong about everything, which isn’t fair. But also, yeah, for sure that they were not bulletproof. There’s no question.
Rath: Again, as somebody who’s written about the paranormal for a long time, how would you evaluate the legacy of the Warrens? And how do the films factor into that?
Belanger: I mean, they were pioneers. They were doing this in a time when other people weren’t.
I remember being in their kitchen — their phone number was listed. There was no internet back then. It just rang all day.
Lorraine would pick it up, ask if they have a Ouija board in the house, tell them they got to get rid of it. Then the phone would ring again.
It was incredible that they did a lot of what they do for free. They didn’t make money from the cases. They made money from selling books and, later, movie rights and things like that. So they were mostly helping people who claimed they needed help.
That being said, of course, they were looking for cases that they could turn into something.
I feel like I get all sides of it. That’s the challenge. How do you earn a living doing this? How do stay true to what you’re doing? And then when money gets involved, the waters get hazy.
So the movies have turned them into rockstars, absolute icons that they wouldn’t have been had the movies not happened. They would have just been sort of like regional celebrities. They got on national TV, too, when they were doing their thing — especially around Amityville.
But I really think the movie took it to a whole other level — their legacy, anyway.
