The Last Exorcism [DVD]

First of all I thought the ending was the best part. If you thought it was randomly tacked on you obviously weren't paying attention. It was carefully, sneakily alluded too several times. And it was straight out of Lovecraft.Secondly complaining about the quality of the film is another useless criticism. It is supposed to be a fake documentary. And in that it succeeds brilliantly. In the first couple of moments of the film I found myself reacting with a little skepticism, until I realized that the Cotton character was pitch perfect for a contemporary fraud. Likewise Ashley Bell does a perfect job. She was just off enough, unlike a movie actress, to make me believe in her. The other actors likewise all felt more like real folks than actors.Thirdly this was not pastiche. This was not a crude slapping together of Rosemary's Baby, Marjoe and the Exorcist. (And when have you seen these things put together before???) Yes it had elements linking those films, but it was hardly culled from them. And the imitation documentary angle really threw it into another zone.And most importantly the film actually had some intellectual muscles on it. It was a bit of a treatise on the loss of faith in a deeply ironic time. Eli Roth and the other producers say as much in their commentary. Having Cotton pick up his plastic cross to try to find faith again was at the heart of the whole film.Now the people who hate this film seem to be the kind of folks who like a horror film to run on predictable tracks. I have a friend who just told me she thought it was stupid. No further explanation. She's hated some other films that seemed to have a point to them as well. Well for some people things just suck or are stupid. The cure for such simplistic criticisms might be to watch a few films with subtitles: fat chance of that.But for my money... If a films engenders really polarized opinions something interesting is most likely going on. And if you like films with brains and subtlety and good acting check this film out and make up your own mind.

This scared me to the very end. I wasn't sure what to expect in another possession movie, but this was very well done, and loads of intense building fear to the end.

First of all I am a huge horror movie fan so I have seen pretty much every movie about posession, exorcism, etc. At first I was turned off by this movie because it was found footage & at the time that this came out, there were too many found footage movies. But after a few years, now I enjoy watching this one usually followed by the sequel. A preacher who makes a living by setting up fake exorcisms arrives on a farm in the depths of southern Louisiana thinks he is earning a quick paycheck only to come face to face with something he himself never truly believed in. Ashley Bell does an excellent job at playing Nell, the girl who is supposedly possessed. I don't want to give away any spoilers but personally, I didn't expect what happened in the end. What I love about this movie now that I've come to appreciate it for what it is, is that the cast does an amazing job in their performances, the score is great & there are plenty of great scares that I enjoyed. There is also a mystery going on here & you don't really know what's real and what's not. Also the setting really draws you in. I love the deep southern, creepy Louisiana feel that this movie has going on. I'm glad that they moved on from the found footage type of film in the sequel which I enjoy even more than this one but this is a fun horror movie with a great cast that you need to see for the origin of the story. Just give it a chance. It's not the best horror movie in the world but it's also not the worst and personally, I don't think this movie deserves all of the hate that's it's gotten among horror fans.

I'll have to admit that I'm surprised by the large number of negative reviews that there are for this movie. "The Last Exorcism" is actually quite good! Looking through some of the more negative reviews, the ending is what seems to be bothering people (which I am trying not to give away). However, this is a horror movie! What kind of ending did people expect? At one point, the viewer will be convinced that the possessed girl is just mentally ill. However, some pretty extreme things will occur that will lead you to question this! This prompted one reviewer to write, "Loved the idea of revealing the scam which is religion, but then they dropped the ball at the end." Really? Why would anyone expect it to be any other way? This is an exorcism movie! If you go into this movie with an understanding of what you are watching, then you will not be disappointed. The acting is great, the documentary format is done convincingly, the horror elements are intense (at least for a PG-13 film), and the storyline is far superior to many other exorcism movies that are out there.

Works great and great movie

Boring, Low budget acting, so-so storyline, and I just could not wait for it to end.I did fast forward a lot as it just could not keep my interest at all.I only kept with it to see "the ending" that so many reviewers mentioned on their write ups.Ok I saw it, and still said what a waste of time.I have seen so many Exorcism movies, some great , some ok, some horrible - which is what this was.ZERO stars for me and not even worth giving it to Goodwill - it is in the trash.

I have never seen a movie that original and well acted as this one. Since this movie Ashley Bell is one of my favorite actresses in the business (she was also a stunner in The Day). The film was full of twists and turns and surprises and I found the ending a great hommage to another very interesting "documentary film" Cannibal Holocaust. Hopefully Eli Roth (producer) will keep things as interersting and original for the second part as he did in the first.