I'm a fan to an extent of supernatural typed movies and I think I have an unnatural tolerance for even the bad ones. I mean I liked Paranormal Activity 4, nobody liked that movie. But there comes a point where every human hits a wall. The Last Exorcism Part II is probably that wall for me. I like the first one, till the end of it at least. The Last Exorcism gave me hope that it's sequel could be decent. It was humorous, fresh, engaging and a tad creepy. But somehow, they managed to ruin all of the charm from the first movie. They turned The Last Exorcism Part II into a shell of its former self. If you watch this, you'll see a promising duo of "exorcism" movies dissolve into lame cookie cutter horror.
The Last Exorcism Part II takes place after the events of the first movie. A couple finds Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell) next to a fridge, looking like a demon. They take her to a hospital who then transfers her to Frank's Home For Girls. Nell also begins working as a maid at a hotel. Her "bad dreams" have seemingly gone away as she begins to make friends and live a normal life. One day Nell and her friends go to a parade and she beings to notice a lot of strange things, most notably a masked man watching her. After that day Nell begins to regress and thinks that the demon, Abalam, is returning. A man dies of a seizure and a kid, Chris (Spencer Clarke), who also works at the hotel, likes Nell slits his throat in front of her. He did this because of sadness, rejection, and viewing a video has leaked onto the internet on how Nell really got pregnant. This sets into motion the drastic need for an exorcism, but it may be too late. The demon is close to forever taking over Nell's body and that may not even be something an exorcism can stop.
The problems with The Last Exorcism Part II is, well, everything to be quite honest. We'll start with the acting, cause quite frankly, Ashley Bell's portrayal of Nell is the only bright spot in this abysmal movie. It might be that she was the only one we go to know. Cause she's also really the only character given any time at all on screen. But, Ashley has a knack for playing a horror role I think and if she signs onto do another, hopefully better movie, she could play a decent part in it. This ties in directly with the writing cause it was awful. The story of a formerly possessed girl trying to live a normal life isn't a bad one. But when she's the only person essentially in the movie, then it gets boring. Each scene feels long and you're wondering if anyone else is gonna step-up character-wise, and it just never happens. The writing is setting up for the "crazy" end of a lack-luster movie, but by the time it gets there all you want the movie to end. I don't know why these big producers, this time Eli Roth, who have made great movies in the past, attach themselves to work (if you can call it that) that is just plain awful. But, oh no, the bad doesn't end with just the writing, story and acting.
The filming style is wholly average at best. When the scares do happen the cut camera cuts are annoying. While this could work more with a movie with more gore, there is almost none in this so it falls flat. Speaking of stuff that's supposed be scary, like gore perhaps, there is nothing scary in this. The jump scares are lame, even sometimes more funny than scary. When people start dying it,s not a shock thing. It's more a "oh look, someone died" thing. Even the big exorcism at the end, the one you've been waiting for this whole movie, falls completely flat. I'm not a huge fan of nothing for one hour and fifteen minutes and then BAM! the last ten are the meat of the movie. Stuff like Paranormal Activity has decent story lines and even character development. This movie has neither and it doesn't do it any favors in the slightest. The music is lame, and most of the time ill-timed. While the cinematography is boring and bland throughout to boot. This is just starting to trail off into beating a dead horse, so I'm going to end this here.
I'm quite sick of berating this awful movie. In short, see this if you must. The Last Exorcism Part II is one of the most uninspired sequels I think I've ever seen. Ashley Bell is the lone bright spot in this and even a good performance, hell even a Academy Award worth performance, would not have come close to saving this trash. This is truly awful.
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