my first one star review if that's even to be celebrated. havent watched a film this bad in a LONG time so honestly gotta give it to them it was kind of refreshing (in a bad way i guess). watched this in cinemas with my friend because i thought it would be as good as the original but i was SORELY disappointed. also the movie poster was kinda sick but the movie itself was a hot mess.
i dont even know where to start. plotwise this movie was just awfully cliche and you could kind of predict what was going to happen from the start. it is such a simple and bland plot like i wonder if there was any creative thinking involved at all. i can just imagine the director going like Okay but what if this time 2 girls got possessed instead of 1!! and then everyone cheered and clapped. like honestly WHAT!!
granted some scenes and parts were actually really good like the bathtub scene and some of the parts at the front with regards to the scare factor, but i also failed to see how a lot of the them helped to move the story along or tied back in later in the movie. and for me cinematography and pacing is ESPECIALLY important for the real horror experience but i felt that they made it more of an action movie than an authentic horror film HELP.
i found that there were some suspenseful parts at the start where the director was able to push and pull the boundaries of the shots to keep the audience at the edge of their seats (with camera techniques, pacing etc) but that magic was just lost towards the end of the movie, which was ultimately the most crucial to the plot. also! a lot of the angles and shots were reused which i think could have been artfully done but i feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities to make jumpscares/suspenseful parts
i especially felt that this show was an affront to the religious imagery/themes you commonly see in horror. ive always been a SUCKER for religious elements in horror but this was just so badly butchered i jokingly said to my friend that it was more like "the avengers for christians" than anything sorry some parts were just SO corny they had no business being part of an exorcist movie. i dont think this director is made for horror honestly what was he thinking
im very sorry to the people who were sitting behind us in the cinema (it was mostly empty) but my friend and i just started giggling at some of the cgi parts .i was reading the letterboxd reviews and someone described it very accurately as a "barf fight" oh my word cgi is supposed to aid the use of special effects but in this case i feel like it just destroyed whatever they were trying to go for. im seriously thinking like did anyone even vet this movie before it was released.
one thing i felt saved the show would probably be the acting by the two possessed girls. cant say the same for the adult actors unfortunately but i feel like the girls did a pretty good job especially lidya jewett (angela fielding in the movie) i genuinely got jumpscared at one one of her scenes!
anyways would only recommend this film if you feel like having a good laugh or want to readjust your standards when it comes to horror movies but it would probably not be worth the $13 i spent on the movie ticket.
- j