The Last Exorcism Review

• 30th Dec 2010

The premise behind Daniel Stamm’s film is a good one: it’s a mockumentary following a jaded deep south evangelist (Patrick Fabian) with a tidy line in phony exorcisms. Having decided to give up this dubious moneyspinner, he embarks on one last job with the camera crew in tow, heading to rural Louisiana to ‘exorcise’ a pubescent girl (Ashley Bell) at her single father’s request. But, after some sinister goings-on at the old farmhouse, the preacher, used to fooling superstitious hicks, soon realises there might actually be something in it.

Things start out routine enough for Fabian’s preacher, a skilled charlatan who acts the part of zealous man of god around Nell and her family, before gleefully showing the camera his bag of tricks, from an iPod full of ‘demon’ sounds to a smoking cruxifix. It’s only once the phony ‘exorcism’ is done and Fabian and his camera crew are en route back to his Baton Rouge home that the scares start to kick in and the group are drawn back to the farmhouse.

For the best part, this is a refreshingly subtle film. The journey through rural Louisiana to the farm itself, past derelict buildings and rusted trailers, has a building menace akin to the journey upriver in Apocalypse Now. All credit to Bell too for her performance as Nell, which eschews Linda Blair-esque headspinning and pea soup-vomiting for a more subtly observed estimation of the effects of demonic possession on an innocent young girl.

Fabian, does a terrific turn as a surprisingly sympathetic conman, whose lack of faith is challenged steadily throughout the film as his experiences with Nell gradually erode his cocky facade. All of the cast in fact (largely unknowns by necessity of the genre), turn in believable performances. The setting too, a big old farmhouse, surrounded by woods and isolated from civilisation, is perfect.

Unfortunately, the film suffers a few badly damaging flaws. Firstly, Stamm is a little selective about sticking to the restrictions of the ‘found footage’ format: there’s inexplicable incidental music and in at least one scene clearly more than one camera involved. These transgressions might have been forgivable had either really been necessary, but they feel like a cop-out and simultaneously destroy the illusion and cheapen the film.

Secondly, there’s a rather divisive ending that seems destined to be prefixed with ‘that’; without giving too much away, it’s jarringly unsubtle, riddled with clichés and altogether feels a little rushed, but it does have its fans.

The ‘found footage’ format has had its hits and its duds since Blair Witch sprung the gimmick on the world, but The Last Exorcist, cheating aside, manages to craft something genuinely scary and unsettling that proves itself a worthy addition to the subgenre.

Adam Richardson