The Last Exorcism

--Reviewed by Lindy Loo

Plotline: An evangelical minister who thinks the practice of exorcisms is being misused allows a video crew to film his last exorcism. It's supposed to be a fake exorcism (everyone is aware of this except for the family of the possessed girl) but degrades into something horribly real.



Scariness factor: I don't know if I've just been watching too many horror movies lately and my scariness gauge has been dampened as a result of sheer glut, but I didn't find this as creepy as I thought I would. And I watched it out on my roof, which makes EVERYTHING creepier. And yet still: meh.

Gross-Out Factor: Breaking of fingers, aftermath of knife-slashing. Nothing too horrible.



Complaints: I find myself wanting to use bullets again because there were so many, but I'll see if I can do without. I finally caved and got this dvd at the library because of the cover (which you can see above). I'd seen it there about 337 times but always passed it up because even though the cover looked creepy I'd never heard of it. Really: I should've just trusted my first instinct. The highlight of this movie's creepiness is shown ON the cover. It's all downhill after that. The pacing is terrible. The first half of the movie is boringness and more boringness about the damned minister and what a douchebag he is. Could've easily been condensed down to half its time with just as much effectiveness. The moments of the actual possession are fleeting and really, not all that interesting. There's a creepy moment here or there, but for the amount of non-creepy shit you sit through to get there, it's definitely not worth it. **SPOILER ALERT** The ending is terrible. It's like if Blair Witch Project and Rosemary's Baby had a baby together and the baby ended up NOT being a devil baby and you were kind of just like hey that was disappointing because I thought this was gonna be a devil baby but it's just a regular old baby and I can see one of those anywhere. Also: the ending got ludicrous immediately. Why did they throw their demon baby in the fire? I don't get it. Is the fire supposed to empower demon baby? And don't get me started on the whole handheld camera bullshit. Ok. I love it when it's done well. I really do. I'll even suspend my disbelief when it's done well. But **DOUBLE SPOILER ALERT** when you have a bunch of devil-worshippers chasing you through a forest while you're running with your video camera in hand and then they kill you, don't you think they'd be like, Hey, we just killed some people and shit, and we ripped a devil baby out of a chick's vag, and all of it got caught on camera, so maybe, I mean--just a thought--but MAYBE WE SHOULDN'T LEAVE THE VIDEO CAMERA HERE FOR SOMEONE TO FIND?? In other words: there is no way in hell this supposedly "real" video footage would've ever made it to us--at least in Blair Witch Project and [REC] they make an effort to explain why it would. **END SPOILER AND INCESSANT FURIOUS RAMBLING** Oh wait. One more: why is there suddenly a sparse score midway through the movie with violins trilling creepily and all that? Isn't this supposed to be handheld? COME ON.



High Points: The possessed girl ends up with sweet boots. Really. That's all I can think of.

Overall: Boo hiss. Super lame. Rent The Exorcist. And if you've already seen it, rent it again.

Grade: D-