Movie Review: The Last Exorcism

I was all excited about seeing Takers this weekend. My BF (best friend) saw it and loved it! She recommended it highly calling it, “a perfect date movie.” She said it’s got action for the men and lots of tasty eye candy (Idris Elba, Michael Ealy, Hayden Christensen, Jay Hernandez, …) for the ladies. I had hoped to add my own review … but no!!!!

I let the BF (boyfriend), a die-hard horror fan, convince me to see The Last Exorcism. How was it? Well, about 20 minutes in, he started apologizing to me and he continued to apologize for the rest of the movie and the rest of the day.

The Last Exorcism uses the tired "we are shooting this like a documentary so it looks really real!” gimmick. A producer and her camera man are following a slick Southern preacher, Pastor Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) who is more of a showman than a man of the cloth. He’s also an exorcist. He doesn’t really believe he’s casting out demons though. Basically, he’s performing an elaborate placebo. He hooks up some spooky sounds, makes some photos rattle and if it makes people feel better, “What’s the problem?” Now, he’s out to debunk ‘exorcisms’ and show people what a farce the whole thing really is.

So he and his crew head out to the middle of Louisiana to “exorcise” the demons from a young girl, Nell (Ashley Sweet). She’s a sheltered little thing who has started inexplicably killing livestock (a sure sign of the devil). Her father is creepy and her brother is creepier. I’ve already given this movie a longer review than it deserves so let me sum up the rest like this. There is lots of talking and more talking and when you think something is about to happen,… they talk even more . Until the end that is, the end that is the most maddening and mystifyingly stupid finale I’ve ever seen.

When the credits began to roll, the 15 people in my audience let out a collective, "WTF????"

The BF owes me big time. I think I’ll be picking out the movies through the end of the year based on the piping pile of steaming hot Devil doo-doo that was The Last Exorcism.