It’s been six years since Molly Hartley (Sarah Lind) last faced the devil. It’s her 24th birthday and everything seems to be going great—she’s the youngest at her firm to make partner and she’s out celebrating with friends. She has a bit too much to drink and invites a swinging couple back to her place, but when she wakes up the next morning, she doesn’t remember anything. The cops knock on her door, responding to some noise complaints, and find the couple brutally murdered in her bathtub. In an odd voice she tells the cops “We did it.”
Molly is taken to the Clovesdale Institute for a court-ordered 30-day evaluation. She starts hearing voices and things seem to be getting worse. Dr. Laurie Hawthorne (Gina Holden) believes her patient is just another run of the mill case, but Molly insists that she is possessed and that 6 years, 6 months and 6 days after her 18th birthday Satan will take hold of her. Dr. Hawthorne investigates Molly’s past, but still is unconvinced—until she sees some strange occurrences that she can no longer ignore. She enlists the help of defrocked priest Father John Barrow (Devon Sawa) to perform an exorcism. Barrow had been placed in Clovesdale after his weakness to fight off the devil during an exorcism caused two deaths. Barrow sees this as an opportunity to redeem himself. But can he summon up the strength to go up against Satan once more and help Molly before her transformation is complete?
This film is a follow-up to 2008’s The Haunting of Molly Hartley. I had never seen or heard of that film at the time of seeing this, so I cannot comment on how well the events tie to one another, but this film does make reference to what had happened to the character six years earlier and provides enough background information for new viewers.
The film has some very intense, creepy moments and a few surprises that will have you jumping from your seat. Sarah Lind does an excellent job playing creepy, and the way she contorts and convulses her body makes you really believe she could be possessed. I was legitimately freaked out by many of her scenes.
However, the film overall wasn’t very well written, stretching this one idea of the exorcism over 45 minutes and then just tacking on a ridiculous final act that seemed to come out of nowhere. Perhaps the final act would have made more sense to someone who had seen the previous film, but for me it just didn’t work, and felt like something out of a completely different movie.
As to the poor writing, one example of this is at the beginning of the film, when the cops enter Molly’s apartment. If they were there for a noise complaint, why did they not show up until the morning?! And when they do show up, why is one of the cops searching the apartment with her gun raised?! If they really suspected it was a dangerous/deadly situation, they would have been there hours earlier, and would have handcuffed Molly immediately! And in another scene later on, while Father Barrow is performing his exorcism, Dr. Hawthorne just strolls by the room like she’s doing an every day “just checking in to see how things are going” type checkup.
The film feels like they had an ending at the 65 minute mark and then realized, “we need another 30 minutes” and decided to tack something else on. The pacing seemed way off and that whole final act just didn’t work for me.
That said, the film’s presentation is really good. The picture remains detailed and clear despite the film’s often subdued palette. The audio track is sometimes great, but never really makes use of the surround channels the way it could have to make things even creepier. They have Molly hearing things and talking in a creepy voice and it seems like a missed opportunity to not have these voices surround the viewer as well. The supplemental material on the disc includes an interesting 19-minute feature on exorcisms and possessions, as well as four minutes of security cam footage and five minutes of behind-the-scenes material. The Blu-ray also contains a code for Digital HD copy of the film.
What’s Included:
Film: (96 min)
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Blu-ray:
- 1080p / Widescreen 1.78:1
- Audio: English 5.1 DTS HD-MA
- Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
- Digital HD Copy redeemable via Flixster (UltraViolet), Google Play, or Vudu (UltraViolet)
Digital Copy (Redemption Deadline 10/23/2018):
Extras:
- Exorcism: Beyond One Truth (18:24)
A priest, scholars and the cast/director of the film talk about exorcisms, demonic possession and other psychiatric disorders. Includes interviews with exorcist Rev. Michael Maginot, Department of Psychiatry directors Dr. Robert Shulman (Rush University) and Dr. Deborah Spitz (University of Chicago), director Steven R. Monroe, and stars Sara Lind (“Molly Hartley”), Devon Sawa (“John Barrow”) and Gina Holden (“Dr. Laurie Hawthorne”). - Clovesdale Institute: Classified Security Camera Footage (4:04)
These clips of “security camera footage” give a glimpse at some of the film’s scenes from a different perspective. Play All or select from “M. Hartley Admission To Hospital”, “Surveillance of Father Barrow”, “Dr. Hawthorne Visits M. Hartley”, “Father Barrow Performs Excorscism Rite Part 1”, “Father Barrow Performs Excorscism Rite Part 2” and “Father Barrow Performs Excorscism Rite Part 3”. - Director Diaries (4:41)
In these promotional shorts, director Steven R. Monroe gives viewers a glimpse behind-the-scenes, including a look at star Sara Lind in the makeup chair, a stunt double getting levitated, filming a satanic ritual scene, and filming the sacrificial suicide scene. Play All or select from “Makeup FX”, “The Exorcism”, “The Black Church” and “The Facility”.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, I was quite disappointed by this film. While it does have some genuinely great, scary moments and a strong performance by Sara Lind, the writing overall is lazy and derivative of other exorcism films (even down to the spray of green puke in one scene). This disc only contains about 30 minutes supplemental features. Those who enjoyed the film in the theater will be pleased with the technical presentation, but others should rent the film first before buying.
