When it was announced that David Gordon Green and Blumhouse were going to do a sequel to The Exorcist I was cautiously optimistic. After all, Green had done a good job reviving the Halloween franchise. Halloween 2018 was a solid sequel to Halloween and I liked Halloween Kills. Halloween Ends is another story. The Exorcist is the greatest horror film ever made in my opinion. It's greatness lies in that even though it's in the horror slgebre it was very much an intense drama with mother witnessing the horrific possession and exorcism of her daughter. It was a film about the loss and regaining of faith. Yes, it did have intense horror elements that gave now turned into tropes that horror films gave copied now for decades, but it stands as a horror masterpiece. The sequels to The Exorcists had been mostly pathetic. The only one that is solid is The Exorcist III. But the rest, especially Exorcist III: The Heretic which is one of the worst films ever let alone a bad sequel. It would not take a lot fir The Exorcist: Believer to improve on the other sequels. Even though this new film is not the embarrassment that The Heretic is, it's very mediocre. It is really only a sequel in name. And the connection to the original film feel tacked on and are not even necessary to this film.
The film does start off with a decent setup. It focuses on a widowed father and his relationship with his daughter. He lost his wife and was left to raise his daughter and is very protective of her. There is another girl who we barely get to know and her story is given much less attention. Her parents aren't are not given much to do. The girls are friends. They go off to the woods to perform a ceremony because one of the girls wants to contact her dead mother. The girls disappear. The scenes where the girls are missing and their parents look fir them are done fairly well but the performances are not as involving as they should be. Victor, the father of Angela is played by Leslie Odom Jr. In a performance that is not a bad one but I never felt for him. The parents are also given hardly anything to do. They are church going people, but the film doesn't flesh them out at all. Again, u didn't care fir these characters.
The worst part of this film is the blatant tacking on of a character from the original film to connect these events to the ones in first film. Ellen Burstyn comes back as Chris MacNeil. The mother of the girl Regan that was possessed decades earlier. The trailer fir this film made it seems like Chris was going to be a bigger part of this film be she's not. It's really just a cameo that is completely unnecessary to this new film. Ellen Burstyn looks uncomfortable in her role, like she didn't even want to be there. There are other ancillary characters that just seem to be there to pad running time. We don't really care fir any of them.
When we finally get to the exorcism of the girls it the film gets even worse. I get that horror films have done this so many times that it would be almost impossible to create anything original or disturbing but this film's exorcism scene ranges from average to actually unintentionally funny. There is a sort of religious rage team element that is just terrible. The original film took the situation seriously, that is whyy it worked and was so harrowing. This film doesn't, it is just an excuse for loud voices and special effects. No impact whatsoever. The whole film feels like it's just another one of the countless copies of the film that this is a sequel to. And there is a short moment in this film so unearned and tacked on that I was angry about it.
The story could have been interesting if the script would have been more interested in having us care about the characters than just being a setup for an exorcism that has no tension or sense of dread or intensity. The film is technically well made and shot but has not even an ounce of the feeling of the original. This film is no better as the countless other films that incessantly copied the original and didn't come close to being even in the same league.
A really bad film.
Grade: F.
The film does start off with a decent setup. It focuses on a widowed father and his relationship with his daughter. He lost his wife and was left to raise his daughter and is very protective of her. There is another girl who we barely get to know and her story is given much less attention. Her parents aren't are not given much to do. The girls are friends. They go off to the woods to perform a ceremony because one of the girls wants to contact her dead mother. The girls disappear. The scenes where the girls are missing and their parents look fir them are done fairly well but the performances are not as involving as they should be. Victor, the father of Angela is played by Leslie Odom Jr. In a performance that is not a bad one but I never felt for him. The parents are also given hardly anything to do. They are church going people, but the film doesn't flesh them out at all. Again, u didn't care fir these characters.
The worst part of this film is the blatant tacking on of a character from the original film to connect these events to the ones in first film. Ellen Burstyn comes back as Chris MacNeil. The mother of the girl Regan that was possessed decades earlier. The trailer fir this film made it seems like Chris was going to be a bigger part of this film be she's not. It's really just a cameo that is completely unnecessary to this new film. Ellen Burstyn looks uncomfortable in her role, like she didn't even want to be there. There are other ancillary characters that just seem to be there to pad running time. We don't really care fir any of them.
When we finally get to the exorcism of the girls it the film gets even worse. I get that horror films have done this so many times that it would be almost impossible to create anything original or disturbing but this film's exorcism scene ranges from average to actually unintentionally funny. There is a sort of religious rage team element that is just terrible. The original film took the situation seriously, that is whyy it worked and was so harrowing. This film doesn't, it is just an excuse for loud voices and special effects. No impact whatsoever. The whole film feels like it's just another one of the countless copies of the film that this is a sequel to. And there is a short moment in this film so unearned and tacked on that I was angry about it.
The story could have been interesting if the script would have been more interested in having us care about the characters than just being a setup for an exorcism that has no tension or sense of dread or intensity. The film is technically well made and shot but has not even an ounce of the feeling of the original. This film is no better as the countless other films that incessantly copied the original and didn't come close to being even in the same league.
A really bad film.
Grade: F.