The Horror Show
The Last Exorcism Part II
by Ed Gass-Donnelly
We were all lied to in 2010 because The Last Exorcism was not the last, as promised to us. The real last exorcism wouldn’t arrive until 2013 with The Last Exorcism Part II. So, I propose that The Last Exorcism Part II should have “part two” dropped from the title and The Last Exorcism should be retconned to, “The Second to Last Exorcism.”
This is normally where I give a short plot summary but let’s hold off on that for a minute. First, let’s quickly catch up on the events of the original film. All right, a former priest is working with a camera crew to show the world that exorcisms are staged. The documentary takes them to Nell, a girl supposedly possessed by the demon Abalam. Over the course of the film, it’s revealed that a local cult had a hand in her condition. Towards the end, they abduct her and it’s up to the priest and his crew to save her. He finds his lost faith and confronts the cult in front of a fiery demonic shape. The crew is terrified and attempt to flee but are both killed and Nell’s brother is shown to also be a member of the cult.
In the following film, things take a different turn. Nell seems to be the sole survivor from the previous. She is taken into an all girls home in hopes of starting again. She begins to get over the trauma of the first movie and even starts to make friends and potential love interests. However, she starts to see and hear things that aren’t really there. Then, men in masks start to follow her around. To make things worse, people begin to die around her. To top it all off, her deceased father appears to her and tells her that the demon has found her and he will posses her again unless she dies. She has hope, however, a secret organization called The Order of the Right Hand has been watching her and can help.
I genuinely loved the first movie but the second not so much. The first film was intentionally ambiguous about whether or not the events of the movie were supernatural. Even some of the more supernatural parts of the movie could be viewed as wishful thinking. The demonic face in the flames could just be our minds recognizing patterns and the same with the demon baby. The sequel doesn’t leave anything to interpretation by the end of the movie. Once there are flaming explosions everywhere, it can’t be explained any other way. This was a sad direction for the movie to go in. The prior events in the film could have been taken either way up until the very end. It even retcons the original film. I honestly don’t care what a crappy sequel does, but don’t let that screw with the original. The first film says, “You can interpret me with a super natural explanation OR a real world one.” Then this douche bag sequel walks up and kicks the original in the stomach and proclaims, “Hey! Screw you original movie, this is a supernatural horror film!” Infuriating.
I like found footage, this is nothing new though. I also like movies that aren’t found footage. However, I’m a full believer in continuity. I get really peeved with movies that break the initial format presented. I think transitioning from found footage to a more cinematic format was awkward and confusing. I hated it when REC 3 made the same move. I also hated the reverse. I mean Hellraiser: Revelations was bad for many reasons but one of the worst parts was the switch to found footage. There is a reason to choose found footage or traditional filming. Found footage takes on a real world approach, which helps convey the intentional ambiguity and lets the viewer interpret the film any way they’d like. It's like an invisible non-biased extra character presenting the movie to us. I find that when traditional filming is used things are often taken at face value. It really just kills any glimmer that an actual level of deeper thought was put into this movie.
The Last Exorcism Part 2 also has many plot devices and plot holes. The biggest plot device was the addition of a secret society that was watching Nell throughout the entire sequel. They needed a way to actually end the movie. If it wasn’t for the order than the final few moments of the movie never would have happened. Seriously, there could have been any number of ways to actually end the movie. You could explain anything because of a secret society. “Hey why didn’t Nell get on with her life and be somewhat normal,” you may ask. “Because secret society,” the movie will reply. It’s so lazy. I hate it, I hate it, and I hate it. Julia Garner from We Are What We Are made a pleasant surprise in this movie as Nell’s friend Gwen. Her alliance seemed somewhat confusing. She would often smirk when terrible things would happen. Then, when she was shown with solid black eyes, it can be pretty safely assumed she’s evil and had some hand in the plot of the film. However, that plot thread is never continued after that. I mean, the demon seemed to posses others at times but they always died. I assumed that she was a member of the cult, most likely. Then, that was called into question because of the final minutes of the film. I want to know what happened there, it was honestly one of the more interesting parts of the movie and it was never delivered. Sometimes plot ambiguity is cool, that is not one of these times!
I honestly got really excited for this movie when I first saw the trailer in theaters. Thankfully, I only spent little over a dollar renting it. Julia Garner’s performance was good, despite how little screen time she actually got. This movie did answer my question as to whether or not Julia Garner’s hair is naturally that curly. Ashley Bell’s, however, left a lot to be desired. She played the tortured-daughter-who-is-also-possessed-by-a-demon brilliantly. However, portraying a human not possessed by demons was a much more difficult task, apparently. I’ve also noticed, that regardless of what expression Bell was trying to portray, her eyebrows are in a permanent scowl. Then, that ending was atrocious. Without going into detail, I can say the ending straight up blew. I will say that it took a very Carrie approach. That wasn’t really the direction this movie needed to go in. A film about a girl balancing a normal life and her past of being possessed by a demonic entity should have been more tragic. That’s all I’m going to say. Seriously, I shouldn’t get my hopes up for sequels.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS
The Horror Show Menu.