Anticipation, uncertainty, and the power of the viewers imagination are the most potent methods of creating an effective horror tale, and the faux-documentary, THE LAST EXORCISM, superbly uses those elements. The result is a film that lulls the audience into the same false sense of security as the sham exorcist at the center of the story, while also assuring that same audience that things will go very badly for him and in ways that are savagely poetic. According to the rules of sunshine outsides the theater, the assumptions our preacher makes about the odd doings at hand are reasonable, but in the shadowy land of the horror film, of course, hes made a mistake, and according the rules of the shadow and of horror films, he will have to pay.
The preacher has lost his faith, the film crew with him is looking for a breakthrough project, and the true believer desperate to cure his daughter are the elements at play on screen. The preacher is Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a name that hearkens back nicely, if obliquely to the Salem witchcraft trials. The Louisiana clergyman is a descendent of a long line of bible-thumping, fire-and-brimstone spouting, vigorously exorcising preachers, but hes had his own epiphany about the family business thanks to his childs brush with illness. Hes also been deeply affected by reports of a botched exorcism that resulted in a child dying. In preparation for leaving the calling hes followed since the age of 10, hes decided to go out in a blaze of glory by exposing fakery hes been using all his life to dupe the faithful who beseech him for help by the hundreds into believing he is actually banishing demons.
His random choice for the expose leads to the rural part of Louisiana, where tales of cults and UFO landings abound, and to the Sweetzer farm, where daughter Nell (Ashley Bell) is behaving oddly and the familys livestock is being mysteriously cut to shreds. Cotton, with a cocky smile and a gleefully conspiratorial mood, demonstrates to the camera the sleight-of-hand and other tricks he will use to convince Nell and her father (Louis Herthum) that the exorcism is working, and even chooses the particular demon he will claim is responsible to the girls possession from the creepy reference book handed down in his family for generations.
Shaking off the skepticism of Nells malevolent brother Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones), Cotton proceeds with his expert diagnosis and comforts father and daughter that all will be well. And all is well and good after the ceremony, replete with special effects expertly executed by Cotton, until Nells behavior becomes even more frightening, and her father decides that only another exorcism or a bullet will save his daughters soul.
The device of using the hand-held camera throughout exacerbates the uncertainty and growing fear of just what is happening in this remote house, to this isolated family with peculiar and very fundamentalist notions about good and evil. Odd voices are heard, and things to bump in the long night that follows, but not on screen, terrifying the crew and eventually even Cotton as his logical answers become fewer and fewer. For all the clever plotting, it is Bell as the addled Nell who makes the film work so chillingly. One minute all innocence and purity, the next a snarling feral creature, the next chillingly self-possessed with a smile that is pure evil.
This is a worthy complement to THE EXORCIST, though relying less on special effects (which are minimal) instead using the equally effective device of using the audiences preconceived notions and prejudices to maneuver it into being an enthusiastic co-conspirator in scaring the bejeezus out of itself. The terror it evokes is of such a primal nature, that it is not easily thrown off, burrowing relentlessly into the very marrow on ones bones, and into the deepest, darkest part of ones psyche.
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