Michael Chaves has described 'The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It' as the "biggest" movie in the franchise yet.

'The Curse of La Llorona' director has taken over from James Wan to helm the latest installment of the horror series, which stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, and believes it is "darker" than previous movies.

Michael said: "In a lot of ways, this is the biggest 'Conjuring' movie. I showed the final cut to Vera (Farmiga) and her husband and they agreed, and they were like, 'This is the darkest Conjuring movie.'

"It digs into some really dark material. This is definitely a case where there's real consequence, there's real victims."

The plot is inspired by real-life cases investigated by Ed and Lorrain Warren, with the latest movie based on a man who claimed that the reason he killed his landlord was because he was possessed by demons with Chaves noting the similarities between the case and the 1995 crime thriller 'Se7en', which follows a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins as the basis for his murders.

Michael told IGN: "One of the things that James and I connected on while making 'The Curse of La Llorona' was sharing a lot of the same favourite movies, and one of them is 'Se7en'.

"We both love that movie, and so when he came to me with this script, he basically was like, 'It's Se7en, but in the Conjuring universe.' And he knew that was like catnip for me."

The filmmaker continued: "This is really taking the Warrens into uncharted places. Being a fan of the franchise, I was honestly really nervous at first breaking with a lot of things that are tradition, but I think that what we've done is really woven the language and the things that you do want from a 'Conjuring' film – the scares, the Warrens, their relationship – and (pushed them) to the limits in this really fresh and exciting new direction."