Marjoe<\/a><\/i>, an Oscar-winning 1972 film about a former child evangelist who, as an adult, lost his faith, but kept on preaching because it was the easiest way he knew to make money. <\/p>\nEventually, Marjoe felt bad enough about what he was doing that he invited a film crew to tag along and help him expose the inner workings of the revival circuit. <\/p>\n
Likewise, The Last Exorcism<\/i> revolves around Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a former child evangelist who now fakes exorcisms for a living because, well, his family does need the money, and he seems to be helping people psychologically even if they aren\u2019t really possessed.<\/p>\n
But now Cotton is troubled \u2014 not only about his dishonesty, but also by the stories he hears about people who have been killed during botched exorcisms. Rather than go on contributing to anyone\u2019s belief in the supernatural, Cotton invites a couple of filmmakers to join him for one last exorcism, during which he will show them all the tricks of the trade. <\/p>\n
Needless to say, this one last job turns out to be a lot more serious than Cotton expected \u2014 and along the way, the lives of several people are threatened, while Cotton faces the possibility that the supernatural may be far more real than he had assumed. <\/p>\n
Credit has to go to the actors for creating characters who are believable, entertaining and multi-faceted. As played by Fabian, Cotton is a con man who can\u2019t help being a little smug at times; but he is also capable of genuine empathy when the situation calls for it. <\/p>\n
Ashley Bell is also fantastic, as the bubbly teenaged girl whose sudden bursts of violence may or may not indicate that she has a demon. One scene, of Bell smiling at the camera just as a door closes between them, may be one of the more unnerving shots I\u2019ve seen this year, precisely because it\u2019s impossible to tell if the smile is basically innocent or tinged with menace. <\/p>\n
Alas, the movie isn\u2019t all that scary \u2014 at times, it even plays like a comedy \u2014 and it is also somewhat incoherent, both formally and theologically. <\/p>\n
Sometimes it plays like a finished documentary, with clever cross-cutting between Cotton\u2019s preparation for the exorcism and the actual exorcism itself; at other times, it plays like raw unedited footage. <\/p>\n
More significantly, the story pretty much falls apart in the final ten minutes or so, as it turns into a strange pastiche of Rosemary\u2019s Baby<\/i>, The Wicker Man<\/i> and who knows what else. <\/p>\n
Perhaps the filmmakers didn\u2019t really know what to do with their premise. Unlike The Exorcist<\/i> and The Exorcism of Emily Rose<\/i>, which were written by people who believed in the supernatural and had something to say about it, The Last Exorcism<\/i> was produced by Eli Roth. He is a movie junkie who, according to some critics, pioneered the so-called \u201ctorture porn\u201d genre \u2014 and who may not have all that much invested in the supernatural reality that these stories point to. <\/p>\n
In its own way, the film suggests that \u201crealism\u201d may not be enough when you\u2019re making a movie on this subject. It helps to have at least one foot in \u201creality,\u201d as well.<\/p>\n
\u2014 A version of this article was first published in <\/i>BC Christian News.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE BEST movies about demonic possession have always tried to ground themselves in a certain kind of realism. The Exorcist cast real-life doctors and priests as fictitious doctors and priests, while The Exorcism of Emily Rose was loosely inspired by a real-life court case. So it was probably inevitable that someone would make a movie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[1665,1667,1664,1677,1662,1663,1666],"class_list":["post-11816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bcchristiannews","tag-ashley-bell","tag-daniel-stamm","tag-eli-roth","tag-exorcism","tag-last-exorcism","tag-marjoe","tag-patrick-fabian"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>THE BEST movies about demonic possession have always tried to ground themselves in a certain kind of realism. The Exorcist<\/a><\/i> cast real-life doctors and priests as fictitious doctors and priests, while The Exorcism of Emily Rose<\/a><\/i> was loosely inspired by a real-life court case. <\/p>\n