GF
Gianluca Fedele
•After giving birth to the demon's child, Nell manages to free herself from the demon and escape to a nearby town close to the exorcism village. She is then recovered and placed in a home for single girls or those with various problems where she will begin her cure, but the demon that ruined her life seems to want her back with him.
Daniel Stamm in 2010 signed one of the best films of the exorcism genre in recent years, according to the opinion of the writer: "The Last Exorcism". It was certainly not a masterpiece or something particularly innovative, but it managed to create that mix of tension and originality that, with the addition of an excellent surprise ending, made it interesting and appreciable. The ending then left many doors open and introduced some elements that intrigued and would have been interesting to see developed... and here we come to the sequel "The Last Exorcism: Deliver Us from Evil".
The film in question (which abandons the mockumentary technique), still produced by Eli Roth, presents itself as a direct sequel to the previous chapter. The film tells what happens right after the famous impactful ending and we immediately understand that the director Ed Gass-Donnelly (who also writes the screenplay here) does not like to win easily because he succeeds in the arduous task of starting with excellent ideas, with excellent questions and elements left in suspense in the first part, throwing everything away and rebuilding a film from scratch based on a stupid and banal plot, with the only element that connects the two films residing in the person of the protagonist, once again played by Ashley Bell.
The demon's child? The satanic sect of the village? The mysterious disappearance of the false reverend? None of that is (almost) even mentioned, instead we witness nothing for 88 long minutes.
Nell, the protagonist, after an improbable and tense prologue, we find her in treatment in a kind of home/clinic for girls and when the healing seems to be going well, the demon will come to visit her... for love!
The first half hour of the film sees Nell's healing as she slowly realizes she still has the demon on her heels, the second half hour of the film sees the woman who has realized she has the demon on her heels, while the last twenty minutes see an improbable and rushed ending.
Throughout this, we are introduced to useless situations and characters repeatedly, all without purpose and without meaning, starting with the shy boy Nell falls for, to the roommates who have a construction of a "something" of evil but who disappear halfway through the film, to the nurse who is part of an "anti-demons" sect inserted in such a forced and mechanical way that it becomes irritating, continuing with the owner of the house or the figure of the dead father who sometimes makes an appearance on the set and is filmed.
Some themes are then mentioned such as emancipation, social networks, or the difficulty of (re) finding a romantic life after the trauma, but they are all things not developed and are exhausted with a couple of scenes.
Obviously, everything "proceeds" without any emotional involvement, without any scene of tension worth mentioning and with the few bloody scenes self-censored and softened to the limit of the bearable.
Only a couple of passages are decently successful (the scene outside Nell's house where the protagonist looks for the boy), but unfortunately, the rest is divided between the unintentional comedy (little) and the most excruciating boredom (much).
We also specify that we are not even facing a classic exorcism film because in reality the demon never presents itself in the protagonist and the only kind of exorcism is found at the end without leaving absolutely any mark on the spectator.
At the end, it is also decided to use CGI effects (for a scene that borders on the pathetic) horrible and absolutely unnecessary, just to not miss anything.
"The Last Exorcism: Deliver Us from Evil", in conclusion, presents itself as a film completely independent of its predecessor, showing from the beginning that it has nothing to say and drags itself tiredly and heavily for an interminable hour and a half.
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