Review of The Last Exorcism (2010) by Dillinger P — 11 Mar 2014

A genuinly solid effort on the whole fake documentary, horror style with lots of charisma and charm. The Last Exorcism is set around a Revrend from Baton Rouge called Cotton Marcus. A documentary team follow him as he tells his story and ultimatly brings us to the meat of the story which is Cotton wants to debunk the myth of the exorcism.

They take a pleading letter and head off to a desolate farm house in Louisiana where Lewis, his son Caleb and his daughter Nell live. Lewis believes Nell to be possessed and Cotton stages an exorcism in order to "heal her" and show the documentary team its all a hoax.

.. or is it? The documentary style is excellent for this setting because it adds a freshness to the found footage horrors we are so used to, even if in parts its visably clear that it would be phsyically impossible to get all the coverage and sound they do with a team of 3.

You allow it and it doesn't go straight for the jugular. It toys with themes here like a tortured mentally challenged girl, she has been through a lot, her mother dead, he father an alchoholic and a bigger surprise later on that I wont spoil, that leads you to always having that doubt in your mind, is she at it or is she actually possessed.

The performances are top notch, the cast of unknowns are all likeable apart from Lewis but you even sympathise with his situation and his desperation to go to such dramatic lengths to ease his daughters suffering.

It's multi layered, witty, charismatic and equally haunting... and then the last 10 minutes happen... And it cheapens it... A LOT! It's impossible not to ruin the film without explaining this so I wont go into much detail, however the film for the most part manages to hold a middle ground between mystisim and real life but just where it looks like the perfect way to end it, nope the writer decides that spelling things out is the only way an audience is going to like this sort of horror and understand it.

The final 10 minutes are a travesty. However because the film does have an almost false ending just prior to the 10 minutes, you could always just stop the dvd there and give this film 5 stars, however with the ending it has your its lucky not to have dipped lower.

A good watch for horror fans and people who waver with the genre.