The Last Exorcism review

When was the last time a horror film really got to you? Maybe elements of last years movies like "Paranormal Activity" and Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell", but those work their magic once and then have to work in other ways to still be consistently entertaining. Which they do. In truth I really don't know. Domestically most horror for the last few years has been more torture porn than anything else and foreign wise you had some stuff that worked well with it's ideas, but didn't stick and others that muddled around so much with it's tone that by the end it was hard to really get any feelings out of it what so ever. "The Last Exorcism" isn't one of those movies to keep you up at night. However it is entertaining. Surprisingly fun and effective it in it's own ways.

"The Last Exorcism" is being promoted the only way a movie like this can be and get and audience. As much as I can't stand the rudimentary film the trailers display with quick cuts and money shots, I do understand why they did it. Let's face it guys... viewers are dumb nowadays. Money shots are ALL they want. Why has "The Expendables" done so well? Because it's all money shots and nothing else. This film really isn't all hell fire, speaking in tongues and shouting about Christ. 90% of the movie is basic suspense, humor and it's characters. Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell SELL the picture. If nothing else worked, they did. Fabian plays Cotton Marcus, a second generation preacher who takes a gig in Georgia to exorcise a demon from a sixteen year old girl (Bell). That's all I'm saying. There's a lot more to both characters and really that's the meat of the film and what makes it tick. Who these people are is what is intriguing and somewhat different from the norm in these sort of horror films.

The documentary style works well enough too by never looking too much like a movie (although the editing can be questioned) and uses a lot of natural lighting; which is most evident in the scenes inside the house in the day. The film is also cheap. Not complaining, but it feels cheap in the way that we're never looking at elaborate set design and the few pieces of staging are pretty low key and crude. Not surprising considering it was independently funded. "The Last Exorcism" is what I'd call a saturday night horror movie. Which is a term that I had as a kid when I was first getting into all this stuff. Basically my aunt would sit me down and show me various horror movies which were mostly in the B-range while growing up and then down the line I was meant to pick it up and run with it solo. This was when we watched stuff like "Audrey Rose", "Critters", "Tremors", "The Fog" etc. There was also A LOT of "Outer Limits" and "Tales of the Crypt". Where most families told stories around the campfire, we told them around the television or on the porch. On a lot of those nights my family would talk about things from the past, strange happenings from around town that they knew about and things of that nature and I found it all really, really interesting.

Now I guess things are different. The interest is still there, but the stories and the people in which to discuss it with are not. The joy of discovering new horror films is still there as well, but alas some of that joy has fleeted. Age and my surrounds has definitely had an effect on that. Silly as it sounds "The Last Exorcism" reminded me of those times as a kid. Not much of what they ever told me was scary, but damned if it didn't have my attention. It allowed my imagination to go into overdrive thinking about people in the woods, satanists, ghost and all that jazz. I'm not trying to find a loophole into liking the film, as it still stands I dug what happens and had a lot of fun viewing it. As it turns out Eli Roth could be part of the .1% of horror directors that moves to producing and actually releases something entertaining (something Wes Craven and Sam Raimi have never done). I dug the fact that it wasn't a straight horror film, that it was made on the cheap and wasn't afraid to use humor from time to time. And I very much enjoyed the qusi-goofiness of the finale moments of the picture. But why it resonates a little more with me is due to my upbringing. Maybe it's the tone or the setting or something else I can't put my finger on yet, but the movie brings back memories and that's worth a lot in my book.