An average movie

Since this movie had been a massive critical and commercial failure, I wasn’t expecting much from it but, since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out anyway. After rebooting the ‘Halloween’ franchise with mixed results (the 1rst installment was pretty good but the 2 following sequels didn’t work so well), instead of finally doing something original, David Gordon Green decided to tackle as well this other massive horror classic. Unfortunately, I would have to agree that the end-result was pretty lame. For starters, why did they start the movie in Haiti if it then afterwards had no impact whatsoever on the story? Then, for some reason, they had decided to have 2 girls which was also a mistake since it deluded the whole thing into 2 half-baked storylines instead of focusing on only one. However, after a very clunky beginning, it was actually pretty neat that Ellen Burstyn was brought into the mix, 50 years after Friedkin’s classic (she was apparently offered a lot of money to show up in this movie). Indeed, from the moment she was involved, the whole thing automatically looked more interesting and entertaining. However, for some incomprehensible reason, they had her being blinded by one of the possessed girls within the next 10 mins, meaning that she was pretty much eliminated right from the start. Seriously, she was by far their biggest asset and they basically got rid of her right away which was such a bewildering and obviously misguided choice. After that, the actual exorcism turned out to be some kind of Avengers-like team up with various religious beliefs represented which was as ridiculous as it might sound. Following the failure of this movie, the planned sequels were cancelled and it seems that Mike Flanagan will next come up with his own version. Anyway, to conclude, David Gordon Green should definitely find some other gimmick, the damned thing was a waste of time and you should probably avoid it. 

5/10