Movie Review: The Last Exorcism

by KYW's Bill Wine --

It may be just a parlor trick, but as parlor tricks go, this one's a doozy.

The Last Exorcism -- in its advertising, in its trailers, in the very sound of its title -- has "superficial exploitation flick" written all over it.

But, it turns out, this horror chiller is a spooky and shivery special delivery.

Patrick Fabian stars as Rev. Cotton Marcus, a charismatic evangelical minister since the age of five, who tells us early on (as he addresses the documentary crew following him around) of his spiritual disillusionment after a career as a scam artist with a pulpit.

But, a child having died in an unsuccessful exorcism that he performed, he is now using the confessional documentary format to admit that he's a fraud and that he has used trickery to convince all those folks who turned to him -- and paid him -- to perform exorcisms on their behalf.

When he gets a fervent plea from one Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum), a religious-fundamentalist father of an allegedly possessed teenage girl (Ashley Bell), who may or may not be slaughtering the family's livestock in the dead of night, the jaded but guilt-ridden preacher decides to make one of his patented house calls (the fee for which he and his family could surely use) and in the process show off the literal tricks of his deceptive trade.

So he and the documentary crew proceed to the Sweetzers' remote Louisiana farm to perform and record one last exorcism.

They expect that they'll be seeing, just one last time, showman Marcus placating yet another believer and that will be that.  But what they encounter when they get there is a lot more challenging and disturbing and threatening that what they had anticipated. What unfolds sure as heck seems like a genuine case of demonic possession.

Director Daniel Stamm (A Necessary Death), working from a script by Huck Botko and Andrew Gurland, slyly and effectively disarms us early on, lulls us into a false sense of security, then grabs us by the lapels and breathlessly engrosses us on the way to a twisty finale that -- in ways that will not be detailed here -- isn't as surehanded as, and falls somewhat short of the anticipated impact of, the smashing buildup.

But prior to that point, even when we know we're being manipulated, we don't mind because we admire the cleverness of the tightrope-walking illusion being detailed.

And, yes, we are freaked out several times along the way, as we await a satisfactory wrapup -- and a fuller explanation of the title -- that may or may not ever come.

The faux-documentary style employed throughout certainly recalls that of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. And that's as much pure observation as it is a compliment.

But in its best moments, The Last Exorcism also resembles, or at least reminds us of, the classics of the genre, such as The Exorcist and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. And that's an absolute compliment.

In what should be a star-making role, the naturally charismatic Patrick Fabian, most of whose crowded résumé is in television roles, does wonders with his early crisis-of-faith scenes, helping Stamm to establish a tingly, elusive tone that sets us up for what's to come.

And the relatively inexperienced Ashley Bell provides her share of startling moments, without the aid of CGI effects, evoking both sympathy and dread in a truly unpredictable pattern and combination.

Which is why we'll scare up 3 stars out of 4 for a supernatural thriller that's an unexpectedly well-executed exercise in terror.  

The Last Exorcism is simply goose-pimply.