for AmSpec. I\u2019ve now read a couple other horror fans\u2019 reviews, and they have the same mix of \u201cThere\u2019s clearly something interesting here, yet the execution is off somehow\u2013bland, reliant on cliche, SOMETHING\u2019s not right.\u201d This even though they pick out different and in some cases opposite elements to praise or criticize. My conclusion is that the specific bits of the movie you find powerful or frustrating may vary, but there\u2019s something lacking in it, something a bit paint-by-numbers and surface-level.<\/p>\n
Still worth seeing if you are specifically a fan of exorcism horror, I think. But one thing I forgot to mention in this review is that even the demonology is weirdly medicalized: \u201cI checked your symptoms on webMD and the answer is DEMONS,\u201d basically. The exorcist often comes across as a technician\u2013the man who knows the rules, not a man who deals with unknown powers. In theory I could like that approach if it\u2019s a way of trivializing demons, highlighting e.g. their lack of imagination, the ways in which they\u2019re unlike<\/em> the weird unpredictability of God and the saints. But in this film, to me, it came across as an attempt to cram a supernatural, clawed foot into a scientistic shoe.<\/p>\n (Also, yes, I do know my opening move in this review is unfair.)<\/p>\n