THE LAST EXORCISM PART II

CONTAINS SPOILERS AND HERE WE GO AGAIN

Well, if nothing else it's not a found-footage movie like the first one: it's a real film with a score (albeit an aural wallpaper one) and edits and camera placement and special effects, like a real film does. But that aside this has very little going for it. A few decent moments, a nice low-key atmosphere, a few "Boo!" jumps, but that's really not enough for a film which should have a primal unsettling power about it (like the original Exorcist, a film I can't ever bring myself to rewatch) but isn't ever scary or unsettling and, unlike Insidious or The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, completely failed to have me leaving the lights on at night.

But at least they've dropped the pseudo-documentary angle and we're no longer pretending this is real: the first actual shot of The Last Exorcism Part II is a shot of the first film's camcorder lying in the grass. Nell (Ashley Bell) is now in a halfway home for troubled girls, trying to make a new life with a job as a hotel chambermaid, and starting a tentative relationship with a co-worker at the hotel. But the demon Abalam may still be inside her, waiting, and if so then the only way of saving her is another exorcism (meaning the exorcism in The Last Exorcism wasn't the last exorcism after all). And if that doesn't work....

This may not be a found-footage film, but it still has the feel of that wretched and overused subgenre, with handheld camera, a music score that's discreet and barely noticeable, and a naturalistic style to it, though the dodgy CGI fire effects distract a little from that. (Strangely, excerpts from the first film show up on YouTube at one point, suggesting that someone has found that camcorder and uploaded the contents.) But it's never scary and never chilling and doesn't once compel you to look away from the screen in anticipation of something genuinely frightening. Instead there are several sudden loud noises to jump at and an ending which I confess I quite liked, though it probably puts the tin hat on the prospect of a further instalment (The Last Exorcism Part III: No, Honest Guv, It's The Last One, I Promise). At least it's short.

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