"The Last Exorcism" movie review

"The Last Exorcism" is almost a good movie. It did everything in its power to stay on the rails, but fell off in the last 10 or 15 minutes. That said, there were some really effective moments in a well-made movie up to that point, so maybe you'll still want to give it a shot.

The movie follows a snake oil salesman preacher's son who is giving up the game for another line of work. On his way off the pulpit, he has decided his work with the church isn't quite completed: the opening of the Vatican's exorcism school has incensed him to blow the whistle on exorcisms, because he's afraid less gentle or skillful priests could kill the "possessed" victims they purport to help.

He should know all about exorcisms...he's performed dozens of them.

He explains that the exorcisms he performed weren't fraudulent, but rather they provided the victims and their families with a service. He often exorcised psychological demons from the house, rather than actual spirits.

He's a charismatic guy, and you really feel a wink-wink nudge-nudge kinship with him as a jaded product of the new millennium. "Let's go placate the rubes," you think to yourself with visions of 4chan memes in your head.

So he chooses a letter from a stack of exorcism requests, and invites the film crew along to witness his work.

Right from the start, as they arrive in the small Louisiana town where the possessed girl lives, things get creepy. They meet a young man who, in a not-so-gentle way, suggests that they turn around, get back on the highway, and leave. He punctuates his matter-of-fact delivery with a couple rocks as they drive off. Instantly creepy, and a great way to set the tone.

But then we meet the girl. She's really endearing, a quiet and withdrawn girl who seems to have incredibly low self-esteem. At one point a crew-member gives her a gift, and she acts like it's the first gift she's ever been given. You can see in her eyes how grateful and disbelieving she is that someone would bother to give her a gift.

So the preacher decides to give her one of his bullshit "exorcisms." He puts up a speaker system, ties string to pictures on the wall, lights some candles, and he's ready to roll. The son of a bitch even has a shocking device on his thumbs run on a 9-volt battery, so that the girl would feel pain whenever "good" touched her. Hilarious.

So he performs the exorcism. He gives the family a great show. I mean, complete with demon sounds from the Ipod he hooked into those aforementioned speakers. He's good. He's a douche, but he wears it well.

He casts out the demons, grabs a fat handful of cash, and retires to a hotel room with the camera crew before the long drive home the next day. Mission accomplished.

And then the girl shows up at the hotel. She didn't know which hotel they were staying at. Nobody but the three of them did.

And then things get weird.

I'll spare you all the spoilers from here on out. The only reason I went into the previous stuff so much is because it's not germane to the rest of the story. It's funny, though, and definitely worth the watch. I left out some good stuff, too. No worries.

The story is taut with tension from here on out. You don't know if the girl is crazy, possessed, or otherwise. It's handled so well right up to the end. The storyline has a twist at the end, and I expected them to go in one direction, but they went in another completely hack, abominable direction that completely sucked.

I want to get into what they did, but...that's the ending of the movie. I'm not going to spoil that. I'll leave this phrase for after you've seen it: "Because all small towns are like that, right Hollywood? Fucking hell."

This movie is all about the actress portraying the possessed girl. She does low self-esteem, abused, isolated chick better than almost anyone I've ever seen. It's not over-the-top, it's understated and realistic. And when she "changes," her stare is absolutely electric. You can't take your eyes off it.

And, as the director found out after he started filming, she's double-jointed. I'll leave it at that, but...wow. Ashley Bell, welcome to Hollywood, and consider me a fan.

Patrick Fabian is perfect as the preacher. Spot on. Obviously a fraud, but able to win you over with his undying charisma and logic. The way Fabian portrays him, that preacher could have a television ministry or a strong career in politics. He is a fine personification of the cult of personality.

Those two performances stand out, but there isn't a bad performance in the whole movie. The only problem lies in the writing. Fabian did his best with the action the script told him to do at the movie's end, but...that's not a realistic action for that character. Period.

Great movie, great actors, great directing...the tone and mood are there, the cinematography is...well, it's one of those "Blair Witch" hand-held camera movies, but it works. I kept expecting them to suddenly turn the camera on some scary shit, and they did. Good job working with the genre, I guess.

But the script? What were they thinking? "Slap something on the end of this thing, and let's roll it on out," evidently. Ugh.

It was what I think every horror movie in this "age of enlightenment" (read: jaded era) needs to be: they take your bored, been-there, done-that attitude, give you a character who agrees with you, and then put that character in a very unusual, dangerous situation that breaks their will to be a jaded douche hack (like you). It was that. Must've run out of ideas.

Such a careless way to finish what could have been a great movie. Don't let that ending ruin what is, up to that point, a pretty damn good flick, though. It won't change your life, but it'll make you jump a couple times. That's all you can ask for, and...unfortunately? That's all they delivered.