Cody Pellom

I just want to say, first off I went into this film with high expectations. I liked the "twins" aspect of this film and expected big scares from that. This film was seriously terrible. it was 2 hours long. 45 minutes could have been left on the cutting room floor and nothing of value would have been lost. The character development was poor and the best part about this film was simply the fact Ann Dowd was in it. However, her character was just a basic character and although Dowd did her best to really run with the character, I believe the director and the script had her boxed in. The film was touted as "one of the scariest movies of the year". I wasn't startled or scared, not even once. A lot of the plot also just didn't make sense. Initially, both girls were hospitalized after they were possessed in the woods but then a few minutes later, the parents went and collected their children from the literal insane asylum and they were just allowed to take them home. That was just lazy and made no sense. They should have done the exorcism in the asylum and that would have made for a scarier plot device when they are over powered by the demon twins etc. Just a squandered opportunity, like so many others in this film They also had all this hype and marketing around the fact they brought back the mother from the original Exorcist. However, she was in this movie for a total of 3 minutes because in her second short scene, something horrifically violent happened to her which effectively removed her completely as a character. She is just gone from the movie after she is attacked, then she is shoved in at the end as a way to tie the whole plot together, but the ending was just utter nonsense and the plot was just kind of murky. It was unclear how they were possessed in the first place and the ending was murky and it just felt rushed. What happened in the woods in detail? Who knows. The girls just disappear. Wasted chance to really have some scares in the woods with the girls devolving there from the demons coming in. The actual exorcism scenes were completely phoned in. There were so many scenes that could have been more explosive and scary. The result was cheesy and so-bad-it's-funny. Just trash. They literally could have paid a group of film school students to do those scenes and it would have been ten times better. I'm the type of person that takes into consideration a director, cast and production's past experience before making an assessment. I also go into watching most films with optimism and try to find the good parts of a movie and really give it the benefit of the doubt. This film has zero redeeming qualities. It was a cash grab and blatant intellectual property theft. Why even make a new "Exorcist" movie if there is no plan to make it terrifying, memorable and unique? The director and writers just scraped the "exorcism movie" barrel and presented nothing to us as the audience but tired, not scary cliches that had been done better by other films outside of "The Exorcist" universe. Pointless film. I simply cannot believe this director thinks he is getting a TRILOGY out of this. What a joke. I hope he is laughed out of Hollywood. This film was an affront to the industry and an insult to the people who spent their hard earned money going out to the theatres and expecting a good, scary time. Formulaic "Marvel Movie" type horror. WASTE OF TIME