Review of The Last Exorcism (2010) by Joseph C — 04 Sep 2011

Generic "found footage" / faux-documentary with some good scares and a decent first hour. There's a strongish performance from Ashley Bell, though no-one else particularly registers, and some intriguing questions raised.

It's odd though that the film-makers don't have faith in the documentary style since there's a distracting music score shoved over the proceedings, reverse shots and implausible sound effects/sound editing - an argument could be that whoever 'found' the footage assembled it into what amounts to a film in hand-held form, but it's a weak argument.

However, the final ten minutes are truly atrocious and the ending is possible one of the worst conclusions to a horror I have ever seen, and it's the terrible ending that unfortunately lingers, not the decent scene-setting or sometimes effective 'exorcism' sequences.