MOVIE REVIEW The Last Exorcism delivers, to a point

I have to confess that I went into this movie expecting what the trailers promised: a straight-forward horror movie with lots of silence-busting noises and characters’ legs being dragged around the corner in the blink of an eye as well as all the standard exorcism motifs like demons, girls with monster voices, crucifixes, blood, vomit and lots of Latin.

The movie delivered on those things to a certain extent, but only in subdued moderation in comparison to your average horror flick. There is a scene in the trailer showing Nell crawling along the ceiling which I don’t even remember being in the movie, and the same goes for the image in the movie poster itself! (You can see the movie poster and the trailer at the bottom of this post.) As a matter of fact, none of the things Nell does while possessed would be considered supernatural, which allowed the door of disbelief to remain propped open.

But, before all the exorcit hits the fan we are treated to a surprisingly fantastic opening 30 minutes introducing us to exorcist Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) and his bid to debunk the myth of exorcisms by bringing along a documentary crew to his next (and last) exorcism.

Patrick Fabian delivered a spectacular performance as the charismatic showman and exorcist Reverend Cotton Marcus.

I’m not joking when I say there was a point in the movie when I asked myself, “Am I watching an Academy Award nomination worthy performance here?” Fabian is a handsome man with a potently charismatic vocal tonality (think Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs) and is fully believable as the powerhouse showman Reverend Marcus. His performance has the perfect mixture of intelligence, swagger, seriousness, wit and humor.

Reverend Cotton Marcus is a Southern preaching prodigy whose real talent is showmanship. It’s his theatrics and charismatic exuberance that does the Lord’s work more than the actual Word of God in his congregation, and the same tools have allowed him to develop into a fantastic exorcism faker. But, Marcus is not a fraud necessarily because he believes he does exorcise demons from the people he treats, but they are more of the psychological variety than the literally demonic.

Eventually he would have a moment in his life that tested his faith and made him realize he may not have truly believed in God and the Church all along – that combined with a national news story of a child losing his life during an attempted exorcism led him to put together the documentary that is The Last Exorcism to expose the practice as a sham.

Patrick Fabian is a handsome man with a potently charismatic vocal tonality (think Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs) that seems fully capable of being the powerhouse showman he claims to be and his performance has the perfect mixture of intelligence, swagger, seriousness, wit and humor.

Fabian’s character is soon paired with Nell Sweetzer (played by Ashley Bell) who also does a fantastic acting job playing the sweet Southern home-schooled Jesus-loving farmgirl with a bad case of alternate personality-inducing demonitis. Ah heck, the entire cast does a phenomenal job! Nell’s father Louis Sweetzer looks the part of a farmer who recently lost his wife and is desperately trying to raise a son and daughter in a world of sin and her brother Caleb is the consummate protective and violent sibling. Oh, and I think I now have a huge crush on Iris Bahr, who plays a mic-wielding documentary producer absolutely perfectly!

Ashley Bell also delivers a solid performance as the possessed Nell Sweetzer

Traditional horror movie fans will be a bit disappointed at how long it takes for the “action” to get started and also by the relative tame nature of it once it does. In the initial stages the documentary crew of two and Reverend Cotton Marcus (as well as the movie audience) still believe they are part of a staged exorcism, but stranger and stranger things begin to happen and doubt begins to seep in. The movie does use a few jolt tactics, but by and large the amount of Boo! moments are relatively few and a little tame both in jump-out-of-your-seatability as well as the gore factor.

Though the movie seems to have lost a bit of it’s momentum for me at this point, I’m still happily along for the ride, just waiting for the movie to make its stand on the practice of exorcism and whether or not there really are demons that possess people. (To tell the truth I had suspicions that the documentary crew and possibly Reverend Marcus were being set up as part of a Punked moment by believers in demons.)

I’m still coasting down the gradually declining trajectory of the movie when all of a sudden, in the last ten minutes, the bottom falls out and I’m left in a crumpled pile with a theater full of other people wondering what the hell just happened, but not in a good way.

Ashley Bell strikes a pose for the poster not included in the movie

As I was leaving the theater I began to wonder if perhaps I had been the victim of a not-so-clever marketing ploy, that perhaps the joltingly awkward (and lame) ending was just one of many different endings being shown at different theaters and I just happen to live in a town that got the short end of the stick. There just has to be a good ending to this movie out there, whether it’s ina theater in Topeka, Kansas, the cutting room floor or just in the head of one of the writers!

Maybe the director and/or writer had a falling out with the producers of the movie and left before it was finished, resulting in the horror genre equivalent of Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons? Perhaps the “Director’s Cut” DVD release will feature the “good” ending?

I think talking specifically about what happens in the end would give a bit too much away to those who have yet to see the film and wouldn’t really add anything to this review. Suffice it to say that they were looking for some sort of M. Night Shyamalan twist with a bit of ambiguity and sadly that’s pretty much what they got, albeit more poorly executed than M. Night would have done. (And I’m not a big Shyamalan fan.)

All that being said, I think the film is entirely worth it for it’s fantastic beginning and not bad middle. Perhaps the first time you see it you should walk out right after the crew meets Logan – you’ll still get the “twist” and “ambiguity” effect without the over-the-top WTF ridiculosity.

GRADE: C+

Here’s the movie trailer for The Last Exorcism, though I would suggest not watching it if you’re hoping to get an idea what the movie will be like: