Harry really enjoyed THE LAST EXORCISM

I should let you know that the less you know about THE LAST EXORCISM, the better. I would recommend not reading reviews. If you are predisposed to see any and all horror films in theaters, and I’m with ya on that, just go. Before I tell you to leave this write up, I will let you know a few things. Any CG that you see in trailers, chat roulette and on TV Spots… has absolutely zero/zip/nada to do with the film. There is no CG in this movie. There’s also no real radical make-up effects. This is an exorcism film that is pretty raw and pretty effective as a result. So with that, I bid those of you that are wanting to go into this not knowing a damn thing… farewell, hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Now… from here on, if you’re reading – you are either someone that has seen the film – or that wants to know as detailed a write up from me as I can get. There will be spoilers – and that’s what you’re going to get, because talking about THE LAST EXORCISM… I’ve got to get into the spoilers. I knew practically nothing about THE LAST EXORCISM, by that I mean… I didn’t even know the right genre of film that I was headed into. I found that relieving simply because my “Genre” alarms were set to another genre. I thought this was straight Exorcism Horror. Instead – this is a mockumentary set to satirize the very act of Exorcism, that then is subverted by the genre of Exorcism horror before being hijacked to another sub-genre of Horror that is far too often missing from the world of horror – which… I won’t mention this high in the review. When the film starts we’re introduced to a grown man that was raised to be a Child Preacher in the South. This grown man of that Child Preacher is a very cynical man. He does not believe in God and doesn’t really have any regrets about that. He’s somebody that has an understanding of what his customers need him to give them with God. The psychological and physiological well being that a good fire & brimstone bit of preaching can do. But he’s grown weary of one act that he is often called upon to perform, the act of exorcism. So he has a documentary crew follow him on what he’s calling his last Exorcism. He’ll do one last exorcism, allow the camera crew to record everything he does to rig the rooms, to help convince the “inflicted” that they are having a real religious and supernatural experience, which will help them get over their very real issues and come out the otherside “healed”. It is all very cynical – and ordinarily – this sort of P.T. Barnum meets Elmer Gantry type of character could be grating, but Patrick Fabian’s Cotton Marcus seems like a kid in a candy store. Or more so – he’s a magician that is finally going to reveal his secrets and he’s all kinds of hokey about it. In a good way. There are 3 attempts at Exorcism. As you would imagine, they go from the absurd first, to… well, let’s just say… convincing. Daniel Stamm accomplishes this by throwing away a lot of the conventions of the genre. This is a film where the more intense it gets – the less and less visual effects get used. The young girl is played by 23 year old Ashley Bell – and she convincingly plays a 16 year old girl. Moreso… when she goes sans makeup, sweat-caked with a camera shooting up her nose, while contorting her body and getting all kinds of freaky… I just wanted to applaud. It is so nice to see this type of scene without a computer going in to mess with the eyes, pop the bones all unrealistically. Here, she doublejoints her way into shit that is fucking freaky. Then there’s the big twist – and I won’t go into what it is. But when the film goes there, I was kinda giddy. I kinda wish it didn’t rush for its conclusion after the turn, but at the same time, it is how the movie was built – and it works. It’s just I could have spent an additional 40 minutes with the twist. Because specifically, that’s serious nightmare shit – that had me and my friends talking quite a long time about our perception of what occurs in the movie. During the Audience Q&A – the audience was about evenly split upon what they thought had happened at the end. The theories are fun to hatch and to argue. And that’s ideally what you want coming out of a film like THE LAST EXORCISM. Something to talk about. And with the performances of Patrick Fabian’s Cotton and Ashley Bell’s Nell… you’re in for something to talk about. In a good way. It’ll definitely make dirt roads in Louisiana less curious. Because I’ll be damned if I’m driving those backroads!