I don't want to sound callous to horror. But I cut my teeth on Freddy and Jason. I had a Pennywise doll that I slept with as a small child and I was the girl who LOVED when her mommy read serial killer biographies at bedtime. Needless to say, I grew up with a taste for horror. And in my day, there have been more than a couple of movies that have bitten my flesh and given me a sleepless night or two. But it's RARE. Even in the Golden Age of Slasher Porn (Saw, Hostel, House of a Thousand Corpses, Etc), it's hard for me to walk out of a movie going "WOW! I was SCARED." Most of the time I just snicker and rest safe in the knowledge that there's nothing scarier out there than what's in my mind when I'm in a psychotic manic state. It's like walking through a field at Gettysburg in my head. I know they're hallucinations. The shrink calls 'em "Horror Hallucinations" becuase they're very gory, very vivid, and VERY horrific. But demons? Ghosts? A fucking clown in a sewer? Child's Play.
So as I said before, all I really wanted was to leave the movie was a little chill under the collar going "spooky." This was not to be with "The Last Exorcist." I haven't walked out of a movie feeling so totally ripped off since the day I stormed out of "White Oleander." It was kind of surprising to me to have so much hatred for a movie upon viewing that I felt the need to IMMEDIATELY blog about how absolutely horrible the movie was in a LONG time.
*** WARNING!!! Spoilers ****
The basic premise is there's this disillusioned Pentecostal (I assume) minister named Cotton who has been performing exorcisms and preaching to a congregation since he was 10 years old. At some point, he basically stops believing in G-d, so he decides that he's going to do one last sham exorcism and PROVE its a sham before quitting the business of preaching altogether. So he hires a documentary crew to follow him around and film him giving this bogus exorcism to a random letter h picks out of a pile. The letter was written by Louis Sweetzer, who is concerned because his teenage daughter (Nell) keeps slaughtering livestock in her sleep. Queue the sham exorcism. And we think it's a success til she magically shows up in Cotton's hotel room on the other side of town in the middle of the night. After the glazed over teenager tries to mack on the ONE OTHER FEMALE in the group (sound/producer lady, Iris), they eventually take her to a hospital where she's pronounced in good health and released to her father. At some point, our sham preacher man goes BACK to the farm to follow up on the girl and finds Louis beating her wildly in the front yard (like GOOD rednecks). After some bullshit build up, the brother gets his face hacked open by the demon possessed sister and dad takes him to the hospital. Meanwhile, demon possessed little girl starts filming her expeditions into crazy land and then proceeds to chase around the film crew. At some point, an answering machine message is overheard telling the dad not to give the Halcyol to the girl because the person prescribing it didn't know Nell was pregnant. After some fun with camera play... Dad comes back and starts chasing the demon possessed girl with a shot gun because preacher man told him earlier that "the only salvation is through death." Insert some more fluff where the sham preacher man is trying to protect the girl while dad is like "I will KILL a bitch." So they go to perform another sham exorcism and the preacher man meets with the demon supposedly inhabiting the little girl... until the demon asks if he wants a "blowing job." Our pseudo-Preacher man goes on a tirade about how this is just a whacked out little girl until she starts screaming "SHE'S NOT INNOCENT." Then there's this whole twist about she fucked a kid that works at a diner... except the kid is gay and only met her once... so now there's holes in everyone's stories so the preacher man goes back to investigate and finds the house COVERED in random religious symbolism - including a celtic knot... I scoffed loudly. The New Yorker sitting behind me huffled loudly when I scoffed... but srsly?! A celtic KNOT?! They had pentagrams in ALL kind of orders, some 666's thrown in for good measure, and a bunch of Illuminati symbolism IN ADDITION to the damn celtic knot. I was not at ALL impressed. This movie was apparently so low budget that they didn't have the manpower to read about demonic symbolism on wikipedia BEFORE plastering the walls with black glitter painted on celtic knots. (And oh yes people.. it IS black glitter paint) eventually they track down the girl, being held to a table by the town pastor and his wife, who are supposedly performing demonic rituals on her. And then she gives birth to a dragon. And they throw the dragon in the fire. And the preacher runs out TO the fire trying to exorcise it and gets roasted. The producer lady and camera man take off for a "Flee Scene" oddly reminiscent of "The Blair Witch Project" only to get hacked to death by other satanists. Then the camera falls dead and we're at credits.
*** END SPOILERS ***
Here's my objective opinion:#1 - This movie started out VERY slow. As if I wanted to spend the first 45 minutes delving into WHY the preacher man was suddenly disillusioned... like I give a shit. Regardless, this is the sum of the movie for the first third of the movie. It DRAGS. It's BORING. There's absolutely no point to it. The movie would have been better suited to have started with a BRIEF introduction to Cotton Marcus' disillusionment and spent more than 30 seconds detailing WHY he hired a camera crew to disprove Pentecostal exorcisms.
#2 - While it was slow to start, there were a few VERY quality horror scenes that could have made the whole thing into a FANTASTIC horror movie if we just kept running with it instead of adding the whole "Underground Cult" aspect to the movie. There's a part in the movie when everyone is sleeping and Nell takes off with the camera during one of her possessed moments. It cuts in and out a lot, but what she did in the window and the tool shed were QUALITY horror scenes. The whole movie could have been saved if they had just kept running with the idea that she was really possessed and her demon was a vain sonofabitch who liked filming himself THROUGH her. But no. This was not meant to be.
#3 - The director said, in an interview, that he and his crew reviewed NUMEROUS horror movies in an effort to keep their movie original by cutting the bits that resembled other horror movies. But it wasn't original in the least. It REEKED of "Been there, done that." Blair Witch was original because it was the first of its kind. Cloverfield was remarkable because it incorporated a new monster into American horror films - something that hasn't been done since the 80's. Rec/Quarantine preyed on our fears of being trapped and provided QUALITY zombies. "The Last Exorcism" is neither remarkable, original, nor does it allow for any rational person to be spooked. It feels like such a jumbled mess of already released horror flicks that I almost felt like I was watching "Not Another Horror Movie". It was ridiculous.
#4 - The ending was pretentious, poorly thought out, and basically left me going "WEAK.SAUCE." The MINUTE I caught wind of a Satan worshipping group in the plot line, I was PISSED.
All told, I want my $7 back, Harkins. Nobody should have to PAY to sit through that agonizingly copied and transparent attempt at a horror film.
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