There's a line in this movie after one of the many jump scares that I feel sums this entire movie up: “what a cliche”.

Exeter is the story of a bunch of teenagers in an abandoned asylum who attempt a spell (Taken straight from “The Craft”) and inadvertently summon a demonic spirit that possesses the cast one by one.

Sound familiar? It should, because the entire movie plays like a greatest hits of the 1973 classic “The Exorcist”, complete with demonic groaning, crab-walking, a Ouija board and a priest who addresses everyone as “my child”. The exorcism scene itself not only tries to parody the previously mentioned film, but is literally learned by the characters on an app on an iPad.

What follows is terrible dialogue (Yes, I'm sure it's a great idea to tell the demon to “suck your big fat dick”), excessive religious imagery and a story taken straight from an episode of Scooby-Doo.

In one memorable scene, after discovering one of the characters has been possessed and is trying to kill them, the lead instantly suggests calling a priest within a second of discovering this boy and previously dismissing the idea of spirits being real. In fact, after they're trapped inside, despite having Wifi, (Which is constantly used to find information about spirits, possession and exorcisms) the characters never once think to use it to contact somebody to perhaps get them out of the asylum full of bloodthirsty spirits.

Exeter suffers from a severe lack of identity, starting off as your standard ghost movie, venturing into religious drama and comedy, before giving us a decent horror movie in the final half hour. Perhaps the writers weren't sure who to appeal to, given that this movie is full of every possible horror movie trope.

It's a real shame that the film's dialogue and acting is so awful, because unlike other movies of this type, the tone is bleak and the gore is plentiful. All of the visual affects look amazing and the pacing is perfect. The only thing that ruins it are the poor attempts at humour for the casual crowd and the sheer lack of realistic behaviour on behalf of the characters.

Regardless of this, I actually kind of enjoyed the film. There's some gore-some moments to be found in Exeter as long as you're willing to suspend disbelief. Like, REALLY suspend it.