The Last Exorcism is GOD DAMN (ha! pun!) awful

WARNING: This review contains graphic clichés like:


“The worst part about that movie was that I paid money for it” and


“Thank God this was the LAST exorcism!”


Allow me to wedge a personal complaint in this space before we truly begin. I am not a fan of scary movies. It’s not that they frighten me so bad that I become paranoid of miscarried evil twins or girls thrown down wells or door-to-door Jehovah’s Witnesses (scary enough as is) or any such number of things. It’s that I sit through them and in the end I feel cheated out of my time and potential entertainment value. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy some of them, but nine times out of ten I leave the theater rather annoyed that I didn’t take the option of “paint drying.” Chief among these hatreds are exorcism movies. They generally consist of a young girl around high school age making weird voices, doing odd movements, and pretending to be sweet and innocent one second and possessed another. They’re not nearly as scary as they are ridiculously hilarious and stupid. The Last Exorcism, however, lacks this unintended redeeming quality.


It opens up surprisingly strongly for an exorcism movie. It’s set up as a documentary to follow this lost-faith preacher who used to perform exorcisms but is now intent on showing them for the hoaxes they are. It’s yet another in a now too-long list of shaky-cam movies but for ninety-eight percent of the movie it’s nowhere near Cloverfield. It does a good job of establishing its documentary credit and it does a real good job of establishing the protagonist. However that’s where the good stops. After the initial exposition the plot becomes, “Here’s this letter asking for an exorcism I got, let’s go film it!” It uses a lot of historical references (to which I have no idea how much truth there is in them) to establish reasons for the belief of possession. It then follows the preacher through his exorcism ritual using mild science as the man behind the curtain. And, predictably, it fails.


Essentially, in this movie, the protagonist is basically against all the sorts of exorcists as you see in The Exorcism of Emily Rose. A lot of people subject to exorcisms are often killed as a result, and he’s out to show that they’re nothing more than scams and to save lives. To this end, he’s constantly trying to save the possessed girl from potential abuse or other maladies. His stalwart gooditude prevails throughout the film, as, as suspected, when facing true supernatural occurrences with good ol’ science and rational, he’s quick to get himself well in over his head in trouble he has no way of fighting. As I said, this is actually well done. He only once gives in to superstitious hooey, and is always approaching the situations in the film using his head. But even then, when there’s obvious bad going on, he still charges in blindly in an attempt to rescue the evil damsel in distress.


When I say “charges,” it should be noted that he could easily have been outmaneuvered, outflanked, and routed by an army of snails. The pacing of the movie is so incredibly dull and dreary that I almost fell asleep within the first forty-five minutes. It takes its sweet time to do anything. Excessive drawn out long cuts reminiscent of a high school video editing class are what this movie is really about. While this movie is trying to ground itself in reality with its documentary-style camera work and editing, even a real documentary is more exciting to watch than this. And as far as grounding itself in reality goes, it breaks the fourth wall by adding in music during “scary” parts that would not be in a documentary (forgivable considering the nature of the film), and by having titles and text placed over the film as though they were edited in during the “post” process, which is impossible granted the stereotypical “we are never ever getting this camera back” ending employed.


To be fair, the acting isn’t bad. It conveys realistic “why no, this is not a movie” well and there isn’t much apart from the ending where I wasn’t able to buy into the characters. Aside from that whole “possessed” thing. Concerning the characters themselves (and foregoing the “possessed” thing, as you know how I feel on that subject), they’re presented well. Everyone plays their part as they’re supposed to, although with any scary movies, there’s unintentional funny to be found everywhere. In one scene which was a “first-person possession” scene, I was laughing hysterically at the actions taking place.


Boiling it down to simpler points, this movie is so bad that to write more expanded paragraphs on it would simply reiterate the same points needlessly. It’s so bad that when I got home, I ripped up my ticket stub and defiantly threw it into the trashcan. Or at least I tried. The shards of pain missed the trashcan so I had to pick them up piece by piece. Even when I get refuge from this movie it still torments me. Had there been someone at the customer service desk of the theater I would have asked for a refund. It’s a two hour (feels like four) slog through an incredibly boring fake documentary setting about a ridiculous concept with the most utterly insane, random, and ridiculously stupid ending I can recall in recent memory. Hands down, this movie makes Jonah Hexx look like a prime candidate for sweeping the Oscars.