The Last Exorcism

Another low budget horror picture that is all gimmick and no guts. 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. Since his conscience is starting to get the best of him, 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 to document the whole thing. 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 little 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 (or herself …) would just take over and render her less annoying. It all leads up to a finale that is unintentionally comical.