I have never seen this. Going by IMDB, the first movie got a rating of 5.6 and this one got a 3.9. For horror, I tend to bump those scores by 1-1.5 because horror is never going to get the respect it deserves from film snobs. You know who you are you pretentious asses. With that being said, I don’t know how much I’ll write. It depends on how engrossed I get in this. I do know that we have some original characters coming back. Let’s jump right on in, then maybe I can take a nap, or more than likely, watch another movie.
After less than than 2 minutes, we have been recapped on the previous movie, and as I have mentioned, that is very important to me in sequels. It allows a viewer to remember something that they saw years ago usually.
14 minutes in and I’m wondering if I made a poor decision. Nell is in a home for girls that need help, and in return, they try to get jobs and become productive members of society. Some girl just said “alright, alright. alright” in passing. They are in New Orleans, and well, everybody is out doing some festive shit. This is about as eventful as Paranormal Activity. I fear this movie putting me to sleep. They are using hackneyed jump scare tactics as opposed to building up tension, or provide a decent ambiance. Again with the jump scare. Loud sounds coming out of nowhere is not horror. 3.9 may have been generous for IMDB.
I just realized what this movie reminds me of. You know how Blair Witch was amazing, I do not understand anybody disagreeing, but I know there are people who don’t understand quality when they see it. Any way, remember how there was an awful sequel to the found footage genre’s first king? The sequel was a straight movie, no found footage stuff. And it was supposed to be at that moment that people realized that making sequels to found footage movies was incredibly difficult. It is almost unheard of to make a sequel to a found footage movie that is better than the original. First of all, in horror, sequels traditionally are weaker, much weaker as a matter of fact than the original. In this case though, you have 2 paths to take. You can make the sequel a normal film, or you can go back to the found footage angle. If you go back to found footage, you rarely can use anybody from the original cast because, well everybody dies in found footage movies usually. So how many different ways can you do something different with the same theme, keep it as a true sequel. That’s damn near impossible. I think V/H/S did a nice job with it’s sequel because of it’s format. You take rec/Quarantine, Paranormal Activity, Grave Encounters, and others, and they stayed with the found footage format, and every sequel was weaker. So you go the opposite way, and you make a real film for a sequel to your found footage, but now you have to make a good story that stand on it’s own in a completely different format. Consider how good Blair Witch would have been if not shot in a found footage style, if it had been in a traditional sense. It’s safe to say that the scares don’t work, and most importantly the night shots are abysmal, especially when they finally enter the house. Like that would be a throwaway movie. And so it is with Blair Witch 2. That was a hell of a long spiel.
Considering what I just wrote, Last Exorcism 2 is doing an admirable job of crossing from foot footage, to normal style. They have a story that can work in either fashion. The problem is have is that this particular story is not all that great. Could I have made this better? I’d like to think so, but the reality is that I would have went in such a different direction than they did as a follow up.Within the first 15-30 minutes, I would have made it seem like Nell was the victim again. Maybe involve another priest to do another exorcism. When he bites on performing, after Nell does some acting making him feel such pity, the priest is killed during the exorcism. We find out that Nell has had control all along, or at least Abalam, the demon. Make her a badass entity that completely messes with people and kills them. She’s already somewhat famous after the incident, so many peoplee would be trying to cure her, and she could just wreak havoc. Then you can have a final standoff of sorts, where good seemingly wins, but there’s a nod to the audience that Abalom still lives on in Nell or has moved on to one of our protagonists.
Oh geez, here we go with CROATOA. Can we also bring Legion into this to in order make this more foolish? I even liked this being in New Orleans, hoping for some solid voodoo shit, but we really aren’t getting as much of that as we should. We just had the big reveal of who the masked person was. It would have worked if it had been her brother Caleb, but I knew he was only in this in archive footage. So that left only one of 2 possibilities, one that was predictible, which they did, or have it be something a lot more outlandish. I’m trying not to be too hard on this, but we have less than 10 minutes to go. I can’t imagine they are on the verge of blowing my mind.
Uhmmmm, I stand corrected, they did something right at the end. I can’t tell you, but I am happy. Those last 5-10 minutes does not make up for the first 90% of the film. I bet they thought if they did this just right, they could make a part 3 and possibly have a franchise. Their failure was in pacing and timing for the big reveal. I assure you that turned away a lot of viewers, and by the time that it happened, people had zero fucks to give. This movie failed to give the audience enough to keep it interesting, and even with a good ending, I admit that this was far from a good movie. I do want a part 3 now. I give this movie a 4.0. I can’t go any higher because of the ending or how much potential it has down the road, only based on what I just saw, and 4 may be too generous/. I’ve seen much worse, and if you truly liked the first one, then I’d say watch it with an open mind knowing that it eventually goes somewhere for a small payoff with big implications. If you were on the fence about the original, avoid this at all costs.
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T & A Totals remain the same yet again
19 Bare breasts
3 bare asses
2 concealed breasts
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