THE LAST EXORCISM PART II (2013)

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Ed Gass-Donnelly
Cast: Ashley Bell, Spencer Treat Clark, Andrew Sensenig, Julia Garner, David Jensen
RunTime: 1 hr 29 mins
Rating: PG13 (Horror)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: 
 
Opening Day: 4 April 2013  

Synopsis: Continuing where the first film left off, Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell) is found terrified and alone in rural Louisiana. Back in the relative safety of New Orleans, Nell realizes that she can't remember entire portions of the previous months—only that she is the last surviving member of her family. Just as Nell begins the difficult process of starting a new life, the evil force that once possessed her is back with other, unimaginably horrific plans that mean her last exorcism was just the beginning.

Movie Review:

The demon Alabam might not have left the 17-year-old Louisana farm-girl Nell, but what originality the filmmakers of ‘The Last Exorcist’ once brought to both the found-footage format and the exorcism horor subgenre has certainly departed with this utterly redundant sequel. Except for producers Eli Roth and Marc Abraham, the creative team of the 2010 modest hit have not returned for a second outing, leaving the task instead to sophomore feature filmmaker Ed Gass-Donnelly to pen and direct a wholly inept film devoid of any real scares or thrills.  

A brief recap establishes the preceding events to which this sequel follows – after confounding both a preacher and his filming crew’s belief that all exorcisms are just hoaxes, Nell becomes not only the subject of a failed exorcism by that very preacher but also a vessel for a demonic coven ritual by some cult members in the neighbourhood. Believed to be the only survivor to escape the ensuing big fire, Nell is sent in a near-catatonic state to a New Orleans foster home for wayward girls, where she starts to rebuild her life with the support of a sympathetic guardian Frank (Muse Watson) and some new friends.

As they are oft to do, things get better before they get worse, and in the first two months at least, Nell seems to be getting her life back on track working as a hotel housekeeper and finding a possible romantic interest in her co-worker Chris (Spencer Treat Clarke). But as we’d all expect, Alabam isn’t quite done with Nell just yet – though he certainly seems to have gotten much tamer than the last time round, no thanks to an ill-advised judgment call by the filmmakers to keep this affair entirely PG13 that pretty much drains the blood out of the whole proceedings.

Don’t get us wrong – we’re not suggesting that Donnelly should have gone the way of ‘Saw’ or ‘Hostel’ in featuring gratuitous gore, but a certain level of intensity is to be expected in order to convey the extent of the danger facing our female protagonist. Instead, Donnelly opts for hoary clichés – like some mysterious phone call in the middle of the night, flies buzzing around Nell’s bedroom, night time levitations and not forgetting of course the incessant nightmares from figures once thought dead – that have been executed with greater flair and imagination in some other exorcism movie.

Whereas the first movie had a messier energy that combined with the found-footage technique gave it a tense edge, this sequel seems content just to stay meek and kid-friendly – and nowhere is this more evident than in a key moment where a character slashes his own throat which both the cinematography and the editing conspire to pretty much take away what visceral impact such a sequence should bring to the movie. Not even the exorcism that the neutered mayhem culminates in offers much genuine excitement, the rite administered by a local occult group who call themselves the ‘Order of the Right Hand Path’ less compelling than the Roman Catholic rite of exorcism in the first movie.

There is but one bright spot in the overall dreariness and that belongs to lead actress Ashley Bell. Convincingly portraying a naïve teenager forced to deal with events far beyond her age, Bell projects an unsettling presence that lends the movie as much bite as she can. Though she isn’t quite called to display the same dexterity as before by physically contorting her body, there is a strong physicality to her acting here as well, which makes her character much more interesting than the standard damsel-in-distress. Because the movie is built around Nell’s predicament, Bell is called upon to provide an anchor performance, and thankfully she does not disappoint.

Pity then that the rest of the movie isn’t worthy of her committed act, offering little raison d’etre to overcome the semantic peculiarities of its predecessor’s title that suggest just how unnecessary it really is. Indeed, there is little particularly imaginative or scary in this sequel to justify its existence – worse still with an open-ended climax that suggests yet another cash-grab excursion to come. Even if you are in need of a horror movie fix, that’s still a poor excuse to be part of ‘The Last Exorcism Part II’, a sequel that deserves to be exorcised itself. 

Movie Rating:

(As unnecessary as its title suggests, this unimaginative and scare-less sequel is no more than a cash-grab attempt at milking some audience dollars from a recognizable brand)

Review by Gabriel Chong