A few creepy moments in "The Last Exorcism"
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Possession movies are a guilty pleasure of mine. From aliens to demons to being consumed by love for a vehicle, I'm always up for watching a supernatural body invasion flick. "The Last Exorcism" falls into this category, but I have more mixed feelings about it than pleasurable ones.
Shot in the increasingly popular faux documentary style, the film revolves around Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a reverend who has been struggling with his faith. Sure, he'll engage his congregation with fiery sermons about believing in the Lord, but he admits that, as of late, he has only been doing it for the steady paychecks.
He says his doubts began when his son was born with a disability and exacerbated when he read a story about a child who was inadvertently killed during an exorcism.
To expose the practice - Cotton believes these possessions are more psychological than supernatural - he invites a camera crew to go along with him the next time he gets a request for an exorcism. They don't have to wait long as a letter from a widowed father of two arrives, stating that he believes demons have possessed his daughter.
Cotton and the camera crew travel to the back woods of Louisiana where they meet the Sweetzer family. There's the devoutly religious father Louis (Louis Herthum), the creepy son Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones) and Nell (Ashley Bell), a sweet-faced, 16-year-old who wakes up covered in blood with no memory of how it got there.
Cotton gets busy with his special brand of exorcism (which includes arranging her room beforehand with hidden speakers that project creepy sound effects and using a crucifix that is rigged to have smoke pour from it) and declares that he has driven the demon out of Nell.
After the successful exorcism, Cotton and the crew scamper out of town believing they have cured Nell of her problems and thus proven possession to be a state of mind. They quickly reassess their initial beliefs when a blank-faced Nell shows up in Cotton's hotel room later that night and more mysterious, and dangerous, things start to happen the longer they stay with the Sweetzer family.
There are some creepy moments in "The Last Exorcism" and some head-scratchingly lame ones, but not even that ridiculousness could kill my overall goodwill for this movie.
For a movie featuring general unknowns and newcomers, "The Last Exorcism" is well acted (especially by Fabian and Bell), and decently written by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland. Now, if only they could have been possessed to write off that ending...that's the real horror of this movie. C
Dedra Cordle is a Messenger staff writer.
