Halloween Roundup

Five Nights At Freddy’s
The Exorcist: Believer
The Nun II

Usually, I only group movies together like this when they’re part of the same series or if there is some special theme linking them all together, which this group doesn’t really have. Unless you count ‘being bad’ as a theme, which, whatever, let’s go with that! The theme here is bad movies that I saw recently which also happen to be horror movies released near Halloween! That’s kind of a spoiler, but what did you expect? Did you think the Five Nights at Freddy’s movie was going to be awesome? That the Exorcist revival brought to us by the guy who brought back the Halloween franchise and then spent years re-killing it was going to capture the magic of the original? That The Nun II has any reason to exist? Might as well get started on these.

Five Nights At Freddy’s
Directed by Emma Tammi

I’m not too familiar with the game this was based on, I’ve played it a little bit but not any of the sequels or spin-offs or anything, but I knew the premise of being a security guard who tries to avoid getting killed by the evil animatronics by controlling doors and stuff at the arcade. Seems like a simple premise that could work for a movie that wants to be a big-budget haunted house, yeah? Well, luckily the entire story was changed and made pointlessly confusing, saving us all from a plot we can understand!

In the new version, Mike, played by Josh Hutcherson, is a man haunted by his traumatic past. Witnessing his brother’s kidnapping at a young age and being the sole guardian of his younger sister, Mike has some issues that need to be worked out. Unfortunately, instead of going to therapy, Mike decides to brutally beat a man in a mall who he suspected of kidnapping a child, like ya do. Shockingly, Mike doesn’t go to prison or get sued, he just loses his job and has to get a new one, working as a night guard at Freddy’s Fozbear’s Pizzeria. Oh, also Mike has persistent night terrors, which may also be fueled by the sleeping pills he takes. At work. On the night shift. No, it never gets explained why he thinks that’s a good idea.

But that’s not all! While you’d think that would all be more than enough plot, the subplot of the movie is about Mike’s aunt trying to take custody of his younger sister, something that movies think is way easier to get done than it actually is, and she is trying to do this to get the monthly support payments for having a foster child. I do wonder though, do they still count as a foster child if the child is biologically related to you? Also, the aunt brings her lawyer with her everywhere and hires goons, so it doesn’t seem like she’s hurting for money. Maybe they thought giant animatronic death machines weren’t enough for the villains so they had to pull a plot straight from a 90s children’s film?

Speaking of those giant animatronic death machines, it’s time for me to get a little bit positive. The monsters look fine, there is nothing wrong with them and with better writing/editing/directing they could probably have been scary. Unfortunately, they never really do anything scary or feel scary, they exist solely to cause harsh edits because they can’t kill anyone on screen because this is a PG-13 movie. I know this was never going to be rated R, especially cause of how many children were in the theater, but couldn’t that envelope have been pushed a little bit more? A little bit more gore wouldn’t have hurt the bottom line, especially when the movie looks like it cost $50 and a box of wine instead of craft services to produce. Thank god for Matthew Lillard, he was a delight whenever he was on screen, which wasn’t nearly enough as he was the only person not sleeping through their role here.

The Exorcist: Believer
Made by Committee

This brings us to The Exorcist: Believer, a movie with so little to say that any analysis of it involves more original ideas than the screenwriters had. After losing his pregnant wife in Haiti during a terrible earthquake, Fielding has lost his faith in God because, of course, he has, how can there be a possession movie without the nonbeliever who becomes a believer. Wait a second, I see what you did there DGG! Anyway, it is now 13ish years later and Fielding has moved his daughter, Angela, to a nice house in the suburbs, a monumentally easy task for a single father who works as a photographer. After Angela and her friend get possessed by demon(s) during a seance that we never see, Fielding has to figure out how to help Angela and stop this demon from taking his child.

Now comes the part where you say, okay that sounds bland and generic and indistinguishable from any other possession movie from the last 50 years, what sets The Exorcist: Believer apart from the pack? Nothing. Nothing sets it apart. It is as bland and dull and hackneyed as you can imagine and then some. It was so rote that my brain was erasing my memories of the movie as I was watching it, because even my brain that’s so full of Z-Grade movie trivia said, “No, this isn’t important”. And that’s surprising to me because The Exorcist was original, shocking, and transgressive in all the ways that Believer isn’t, especially when you consider how nearly every sequence in The Exorcist is iconic. Aside from money, what is the possible point of doing a follow-up to The Exorcist more than 40 years later that ignores what made The Exorcist unique?

The cast is the one thing Believer got right, and the ensemble here isn’t half bad. Leslie Odom Jr. and Ellen Burstyn are giving 110% but their roles are shallower than a puddle of Regan’s pea soup vomit, so it is all in vain. There’s one part of the movie that had an idea, no matter how desperate or half-baked it was; which involved a half dozen religious folk of different denominations and churches and whatnot joining forth to combat a demon as if they were the Avengers by way of the VeggieTales. This idea about there being many pathways to spiritualism and that they’re possibly all valid is neat but is just there for one scene that was in the trailer. Apart from that there is nothing more said.

The Nun II
Directed by Michael Chaves

I managed to catch the first The Nun when it came out in theaters originally and, if I recall correctly, I dedicated all of 1 paragraph to it, so I’ll follow that tradition and use no more than that to this one. This may be shocking to say, but The Nun II might be the best movie out of these three, and yeah that hurts to type but when your competition is two movies that barely qualify as movies, one that looks like a movie and tries to act like a movie is the clear winner. A step up from the original. Barely.

Of all these movies I’d suggest seeing none of them. Stay in, rent Talk To Me, and have a great time. Happy Halloween everyone!