Last Exorcism Review

by Gary Barnidge on August 28th, 2010

The Last Exorcism is shot in a documentary style about a minister (Cotton Marcus)  who lets a camera crew follow him on his last exorcism and see how everything is done, but someone or something else has a surprise in store for them.

Cotton is played by Patrick Fabian who deliver a very believable performance as a minister who is trying to cope with what he is seeing happen in front of him. He shows the true emotion of someone being frightened of what is happening in front of him. Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell) is the girl who needs to be exorcised and when you watch her performance you see someone who is terrified of what is happening which makes the movie very believable. When she does her blank stares into the camera or at the characters you ask yourself is she really possessed.

As stated above the movie is shot like a documentary with the audience getting the view behind the camera similar to movies like Cloverfield, Blair Witch, and Quarantine. This film was different from those films by the camera being more steady and easier to see what is going on. The camera at times looks as if it is one a stand because its so steady which you usually dont see from movies shot in this style. The way the film is shot brings you as an audience member into the situation and makes the movie that much more believable.

With a relatively unknown director in Daniel Stamm (only directed two other unknown movies), he delivered a believable product that makes you wonder what is happening. Their is a few parts in the movie that were unneeded and made you ask why was this in there. He also leaves you wanting more and wondering what the hell is going on with the way the movie ends which will make an audience hate the movie or love the movie.

All in all I was looking forward to this movie and was a little disappointed to see it was a PG 13 rating which means it wasn’t going to be very scary, which is what I was expecting with a movie called The Last Exorcism. I give the movie a 6 out of 10 would have been better with lost footage to explain the ending or with an R rating.

Posted in Reviews