Disclaimer: I'm a former Catholic boy scared to hell by nuns.By John DeSando, "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
According to the tacit rules of Blair Witch, The Last Exorcism passes the test. As Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) performs his last exorcism in front of a documentary camera, young director Daniel Stamm makes it look real enough, as Blair Witch did, with the requisite jerky hand-held camera, low key lighting, and local-looking cast.
Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell) may be possessed, and her dad, Louis (Louis Hertham) is certain she is, and Reverend Cotton lost his faith long ago to morph into an evangelical charlatan. But all that changes when little Nell exhibits some Linda Blair qualities, especially the vomiting pea soup, to make even the camera crew scared.
Different from most other exorcism films, Last is the first I know of to downplay deeply biblical connections and have the exorcist recognize that Nell needs psychiatric help. And no one, not even Nell, really goes over the top dramatically.
So I'm left with a tidy horror flick not adhering to the genre's demand for junk, but rather responding as anyone of us might faced with a strange teen and even stranger father and brother.
As a former altar boy, I experienced nuns who could scare the hell out of you, so nothing truly scary seems to happen in this film. Despite the indoctrinations, like Reverend Cotton I'm agnostic to this day.
John DeSando co-hosts It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee for WCBE 90.5. The shows can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com