Meg has been hounding me to watch The Last Exorcism ever since she saw it in theatres. I initially wasn’t interested in seeing it - I hate horror films with an undying passion, and I heard that the ending of the film was enough to make people either demand their money back, or walk out laughing. Either way, Meg picked the Blu-ray up from Blockbuster at our liquidation sale and has been bringing it up almost every day since her purchase.

I finally agreed to watch it and I have to admit that I did like it. The film is set up like a documentary (much like Blair Witch or Troll Hunter) but it wasn’t nearly as amateur in the way it was shot in the “handheld” manner. The film focuses on Cotton Marcus (played successfully by Patrick Fabian) a preacher who performs exorcisms and has completely lost his faith in religion. The film carries on as a sort of inside joke - Marcus goes to a small town to exorcise a demon from a young girl but shows the “smokes and mirrors” of the process in trying to make it more elaborate for the cameras. Things start to turn sour once Marcus begins questioning his faith as the girl’s possession becomes increasingly more deranged and impossible. 

I thought the film was really great. There aren’t a lot of moments in the film that scared me. There is probably only a solid 25-30 minutes that revolved around the actual “scary” moments. Other than that, the film builds up to a climatic ending that falls flat, but the remaining hour and twenty minutes of the film were really enjoyable. I liked the style and acting, and thought that it was definitely a good film despite being classified as a horror. I feel that another 15 minutes would have probably allowed for a better lead up to the ending though, and would’ve helped the ending feel not as rushed.

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The Last Exorcism, Blu-ray/DVD Combo
The Last Exorcism - DVD