The Last Exorcism Makes Me Hope It's Really The Last One

So, thanks to OttawaHorror.com, we got to see a special screening of Eli Roth's The Last Exorcism. Since we originally talked about it, we were super-dupity excited. We love the documentary/first-person-perspective style of film, we love demons and evil shit, and we especially love movies about exorcisms. This one had great potential.

A Reverand full of showmanship and magic tricks, Cotton Marcus, embarks with a documentary crew to film his final exorcism. At the start of the film we learn that his faith isn't quite in tact and that he does the job because he's "good at it, and gets paid for it." After learning that exorcisms were hurting children all over the world, he decides to take the film crew with him on his last job to expose the practice for the fraud it is. But this last job takes an eerie turn when the unexplained starts happening, and Cotton starts to question the very decency of the family involved.

The film didn't live up to its potential. Plain and simple. It took forever to get into the good stuff, and when the good stuff finally came - it was just like watching the trailer. Basically, watch the trailer and you'll see all THREE scary moments from the film. There was also a lot of comedy in The Last Exorcism. I know... what? Chantale and I debated whether or not this was intentional or not, but the audience cracked up frequently. The creepiness of the little posessed girl came off as funny most of the time, and we were only truly freaked out once or twice.

Every moment that made your hairs stand up in suspense turned out to be a let down. From a violent ruccus that involves a recorder rendition of Greensleeves, to following creepy sounds into the woods only to find... well... I'll let you watch the movie... if you feel like wasting your time.

Also, if you have a problem with motion sickness, stay away. The wobbliness was hardcore, and lasted throughout the whole movie. There wasn't a moment of still camerawork, and this affected Chanty's stummy. I looked over several times to see her groaning, her head in her hands, and eyes closed.

The supporting characters were poorly developed. I never heard either of their names, and one of them didn't even show his face. When he spoke for the first time from behind the camera halfway through the film, I was like "Oh geez there's another dude." They faded into the background behind the scene-stealing Reverand and overly sweet and innocent home-school Jesus-lovin' Nell (demon child).

And honestly, we were hoping she'd get really effed up. We wanted her appearance to change, we wanted demonic voices, we wanted gravity-defying ceiling crawls, we wanted head spinning... but all we got was some dark circles under her eyes. Also, there were some major Blair Witch ripoff moments.. I mean shot for shot, sound for sound.

Anyways, regardless of such great potential to scare the poop outta us, this film was a huge disappointment. And the crowd around us seemed to agree. We filed out of the movie to a chorus of mumbled "stupid" and "sucks" and "ughhh."

They tried to trip up the audience with a false ending that left everyone going "hmmm that's it?" but honestly, when they kept going and tried to give us a "twist", they failed miserably. They shoulda just let it end with the hmm.

Not to be totally negative, here are the things we liked:

- The Rev's parlor tricks to create the illusion of demonic posession

- The Rev's coy glances at the camera and sneaky thumbs up

- Caleb Landry Jones' performance as the brother

The film comes out this Friday. Just save your money and watch The Exorcist again. That way you'll get what you expect from a film about exorcism.