Classic Movie Review: The Last Exorcism (2010)

Found footage movies are films that are supposedly found after people have gone missing and a camera is found showing the events of what happened to the people. These films have been around since the 70s, but were highly popularised when The Blair Witch Project (1999) came out. Throughout the subsequent decade, a number of these films were released until, what I think is the best example, The Last Exorcism.

Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) is a church minister and amateur thespian from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who conducts exorcisms. After the birth of his son and the death of a young autistic boy during an exorcism (not one of his), he decides to out the lies and tricks behind exorcisms. He does this by recruiting a camera man and producer to make a documentary of him performing his last exorcism. Marcus gets a request from Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum), whose daughter Nell (Ashley Bell) is possessed by a supposed demon.

After an initial exorcism in which Marcus shows the tricks that he uses to fool the people, things start to get weird. Nell shows up at the hotel where Marcus and his crew are staying and starts showing signs of being truly possessed, although Marcus believes that she just needs psychiatric help.

The film's greatest asset is it's ambiguity that so perfectly comes through it's writing and performances. The story has you guessing until the final minute about the possibility of demons actually existing. The film is definitely for fans of the horror genre or skeptics of supernatural entities.

The two stand out performances come from Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell. Fabian essentially acts as an extension of the audience. At first, he is extremely cynical toward the supernatural, but soon his beliefs are tested when strange things occur. He portrays the pastor incredibly and addresses the camera superbly.

Bell, too, is a powerhouse in this film. Her ability to contort her own body into poses that Linda Blair could never achieve in The Exorcist is haunting. She occasionally stares right into the camera in scenes where she is possessed and it is really quite chilling.

Verdict: A haunting film and my favourite horror movie. The story is great and has one of the most ambiguous endings I've ever seen.