DGhost hunting documentaries are always going to be very hit-or-miss, depending on your audience. Believers might hang on every word, gasping at creepy audio recordings or video clips, while skeptics might cross their arms, staunchly refusing to believe there’s not a “rational” explanation for everything. Devil Down South certainly brought out the skeptic in me, but I feel like it would be hard not to watch it without raising an eyebrow at least once.

Devil Down South is the second feature-length documentary from paranormal investigator and singer-songwriter Sean D. Austin. It follows “Abby,” a young woman who believes she is cursed or even possessed as the result of a misguided black magic ritual she performed as a teenager. Precocious and sensitive from a young age, “Abby” was emotionally neglected by her family after claiming to have been sexually abused by an older cousin. Bullied at school for being poor and believing she could see angels and demons, and neglected at home in favor of her younger sister, “Abby” was drawn toward her great aunt, a black sheep in the family for supposedly practicing witchcraft and being part of a “cult.” In high school, “Abby” is given a book of black magic spells and rituals by this aunt. In a desperate attempt to right the wrongs that have been done to her all her life, she performs a spell, and says that from that moment on, she’s felt a darkness has attached itself to her. Along with her husband, nine-year-old son, and other family members, “Abby” and Sean try to chart the things they believe have been happening as a result of the spell, from the mundane to the downright creepy.

Faith plays an important role in Devil Down South, with Sean having been “raised Catholic” and “Abby” raising her son in the church as well as being devout herself. Both definitely believe the things they’re describing, but it comes off as extremely preachy. At one point, Sean describes a symbol appearing on “Abby” that’s associated with the goddess Astarte. “I had never heard that name before,” says Sean, “so I looked it up and discovered that Astarte is a demonic fertility goddess.” This, to put it gently, is nonsense. Astarte is most commonly believed to be an “ancient Near-Eastern” version of the Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar, a goddess of war, hunting, and love. “Known sources do not indicate she was a fertility goddess, contrary to opinions in early scholarship.” Just because something comes from a pre-Christian mythology, that doesn’t make it demonic. This was one of several scenes that felt like an evangelical recruitment video instead of an earnest attempt to showcase paranormal activity.

In addition to the general evangelizing, the movie is just sloppily put together, with no regard for chronological ordering of events. It’s hard to pin down the exact timeline in which “Abby” experiences paranormal activity because she will jump from something that happened in high school, to something that happened yesterday, to something that happened when her son was three, etc. The opening scene is over five minutes of minor weirdness we never get real context for. This isn’t Austin’s first outing as a documentarian, but it feels like he’s never even taken a class involving narrative structure before. Here’s a tip for aspiring nonfiction creators: learn about chronological order and order of importance and then use one. Don’t just throw events at the audience at random.

There were also way too many dramatizations. At an hour and fifty minutes, Devil Down South is not short, and the runtime is really padded out by poorly-acted dramatizations of events, most of which have already been described sufficiently by “Abby,” her son, or Sean. Most of them could be cut, and the film would benefit from it.

If you’re a believer, you’ll probably enjoy Devil Down South. It’s plenty creepy despite all its faults. But for the skeptics like me, it will probably just feel like an exercise in trying too hard. I will agree with the evangelicals on one point, though: never mess around with magic or spirituality you don’t understand. Never give blood to people/things that aren’t medical professionals, and if you summon a spirit, always tell it to leave when you’re done. That’s just common sense.

3 out of 10