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The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
Boring.
An Ugly looking film, that was my first thought as it started and the film did nothing to distract me from that because from the start it just never grabbed or engaged me into its story. I was fine with this movie being bad going in. A bad movie can still be fun. That is not the case here. Too many characters, not enough dimensions to any of them and by the "climax" the only reason my heart rate was even remotely elevated was because I knew I could go to bed soon and that was a the most exciting prospect of the exorcist believer.
There was one interesting plot point that is dealt with terribly. The idea that the protagonist chose to save his hospitalised wife even though he knew it came at the cost of his soon to be born daughter's life. The wife dies and the daughter is born and survives.
This is a very interesting story. And this alone could've been a very interesting exploration of a very particular father daughter relationship. There's so much that is just begging to be exploited in this theme of love vs loss.
And yet the film instead hides this fact until the very end when it is revealed in a weird flashback when he is asked to choose which girl should survive the exorcism.
A better story would have given us this information at the start and built it up to this moment where the father is yet again asked to decide his daughters fate and this time he doesn't want to make the same mistake.
The Perfection (2018)
Not great. But really wants to be.
The perfection is doing its darndest to be a great movie. Seemingly Influenced by the main stream success of yorgos lanthimus though without the understanding that his films aren't just being weird for weirds sake.
The script is unfortunately weak in parts and a little too exposition heavy in others because the film doesn't ever feel natural or confident enough to tell it's own story without explaining itself. The use of rewind is cheesy (especially the sound design in these sequences) and takes place too soon after the events they wish to explain. I'd love to see a version of this film that plays out without rewinds and heavy exposition because when I was lost, when I was baffled and trying to piece together the story myself is when the movies at its best. The performances are so strong they sell the events when motives are alteria without saying a word of their characters true intentions.
Editing of this film is superb especially the blink if you miss it glitch in a frame effect when a mistake is made during the final performance. It's these subtlety's that make this movie excel before it falls into broad boarderline nonsense.
I'm not sure if I liked this movie but I will say it's definitly worth watching because if anything it is fascinating.