MyRating: YYYYDirector: Daniel Stamm
Cast: Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Louis Herthum, Iris Bahr, Caleb Landry Jones
MPAA: Rated PG-13 for disturbing violent content and terror, some sexual references and thematic material
Reverend Cotton Marcus (Fabian) is a charismatic priest who has performed so many exorcisms in his life. But one thing people don't know is that Cotton has lost most of his faith long time ago, as he questioning the truth of the spiritual infestations that he has encountered for many years in his spiritual career. He always successfully healed the 'possessed' people, however he did not actually believe that they were possessed by the demonic spirits. He believed it was the psychological and the post traumatic effect that put the individuals into their 'possessed'-like situations. These long years of doubts has made Cotton to not believe that there are 'demons' at all. And by not believing that there are demons, which were mentioned uncountable times in the Scripture, Cotton also starts to doubt about 'God'.
Tired of his broken spirit, Cotton decides to do a documentary film with a purpose to expose to the world, that exorcism is a fraud, so that no more people will be harmed by the exorcism practices. Randomly, he chooses to visit a Louisiana farmhouse of Louis Sweetzer (Herthum), a man who claims that his daughter, Nell (Bell) is possessed by a demon, that made her killed their livestocks. However, what seems to be a perfect plan for Cotton is soon turned into something that many years of his past experiences could not even prepare him for the terror of the true evil imparted through the young Nell. And what suppose to be his final exorcism turns out to be his biggest battle ever, as not only he has to protect the Sweetzer family, his film crew, and himself, but also he has to fight the demon with his empty deposit of faith.
I almost wanted to pass this movie in the theater, due to the handheld camera thing. Even though I liked Paranormal Activity, [Rec], and Diary of the Dead, I am still haunting by the bad nausea experience I had with Cloverfield, one of the worst experience I had in the movie theater. I do have a weak stomach when talking about a very shaky camera work. But I went to see it anyway, with a low expectation in my mind towards the story and the possibility of having another nausea. I didn't know much of the story that I was about to see (I always hate the 'spoilers' anyway). And I am glad I didn't pass this. The Last Exorcism was indeed another great experience I have with horror movies.
It was scary. It was creepy. And it was different from the standard horror movies that we used to see. Not because it was different, that made me love this movie, but simply because it has a good and enticing story. The use of handheld camera did increase the scares, because you just don't know what will show up on screen the next time the camera moves. And you know what, I didn't feel nausea at all, since the camera was not that shaky. In fact, I felt so stress at some scenes, because of my (worst) expectation of what will show up on the screen. But this kind of stress is the stress I love when watching horror movies. I used to hear this when I was a kid about horror movies, that "The moviemaker is crazy, but the audiences are stupid, of believing all the craziness that the moviemaker creates." It was a kind of joke actually, but maybe I was that 'stupid' guy, who like to be stressed out by this kind of movie. But I loved it anyway.
This movie started like a documentary film, but once the real story began, it never fell back, as you will be brought into the level of tenseness that are keep increasing the more the story goes. Besides the well written story, this movie was also very well acted. The characterization was one of the strength of this movie. Patrick Fabian was great in portraying the charismatic priest, whose act of fraud seems to be unavoidably part of his charming personality. His character was so dynamic that will make us fall for him. On the other hand, Ashley Bell was outstanding as Nell Sweetzer, a naive and nice young girl with the 'demon' inside her. This young actress has a very good and convincing acting chops. She will make you feel sympathy for her pain, but at the other time, she will make you scare as hell. Great performances by both of them.
Now, about the ending. The ending has created mixed reviews and opinions, that for some people will cloud the judgement towards this movie in overall. And I have to say that, it was not the 'perfect' ending. But I think it was quite a good way to end the movie, as there were actually several ending possibilities that this movie could offer. You may ask, so what happen to this character? Or, what happen to that character? Sometimes a horror movie should not answer all those questions and let the audiences answer them in their minds. Therefore, in my opinion, the ending was fine. It may not be the same as what you expected, but it was 'fine'.
This is another good horror movie with a clever and scary script. It's hard for me not to like this movie because it was simply good. Loved it! (MJ)
