The Last Exorcism

Here’s another low-budget horror picture that is all gimmick. Patrick Fabian (Big Love) stars as Cotton Marcus, a sleazy preacher who enjoys manipulating the congregation at his Pentecostal church. He also does exorcisms on the side, a practice he doesn’t really believe in, but, hey, he’s got a family to feed. His conscience is starting to get the best of him, but he decides he’ll do one last exorcism for old time’s sake, and, of course, he’s going to bring along a camera crew along. Cotton travels to a country farm inhabited by Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum) and his two children, Nell (Ashley Bell) and Caleb (Caleb Landry Jones). It seems that Nell has a bit of the devil in her—or a demon offspring, to be more precise. Bell plays Nell so super-sweet when she’s not doing the possession thing that I found myself wishing the devil himself would just take over and render her less-annoying. It all leads up to a finale that is unintentionally comical.