aldiboronti

Have you noticed how prim the Devil has become these days? Gone is the time when Lucifer would make the possessed force their mothers to lick them or masturbate with a crucifix as Regan did. It's almost as if he doesn't want to offend the Warrens who would run a mile from such sexual shenanigans. Of course the truth is that film-makers don't have the courage that Friedkin had and it's the reason that their movies will never have the power of The Exorcist. This film pushes all the expected buttons and stays well away from anything that might offend delicate sensibilities. Which is the reason it falls flat on its dumb face.

And the one is Todd Phillips. This gifted director clearly let the first movie swell his head and thought he could do anything. Sure he can but that doesn't mean the audience will like it. And the audience didn't. In fact they hated it, and rightly so. The guy must have taken leave of his senses. By filling more than half the film with badly sung songs he suffocated any decent movie that was in there struggling to breathe and managed to turn out one of the worst films ever made. That is some achievement.

Really, this is terrible. Every time you think something decent is about to happen Joaquin of Gaga start singing and make you feel sick. Joaquin's voice isn't too but Gaga sounds like a cat being tortured. I can understand why the studio heads greenlit this but I'm sure they regret it sorely now.

After watching this film I know what it's like to drown in molasses. I honestly wanted to like this, I love a good folk-horror movie. But it soon became clear that this wasn't good at all. Sure, the actors tried their hardest and I give them credit for that. But they were fighting against the current and it eventually overwhelmed them. I have nothing at all against slow films, I love Last Year At Marienbad but there's a real art involved in holding the viewer's attention at such a pace. You risk sending an audience to sleep if you do it badly. And that's the result here. 4 points for the effort..