The Last exorcism (2010)

The Last Exorcism is certainly an interesting specimen.I wouldn’t say that it was the best horror film that I have seen, but it’s not exactly the worst either. This film belongs to the same sub-genre of horror as ‘Quarantine’, the handheld camera horror. The storyline concerns a priest who used to exorcise demonic spirits from people, but now has started to question his beliefs and has decided to hoax an exorcism. After this, he goes home to his wife and kids and then lives a happy life until run over by a combine harvester. Wait, that’s something else. Of course after the ‘fake’ exorcism, the possessed girl in question starts showing signs of being possessed  by ‘Abalam’, a demon who specialises in young girls. This is when the priest’s belief is brought into question and he tries to figure out what is going on.And you are right there with him, this is mainly due to the filming style, half of the ‘action’ and actual horror is obscured by dodgy camera angles. This does add to the atmosphere of confusion but it gets rather irritating after a while. There is one quite good sequence about half way through, when the girl gets the camera and murders a cat (this doesn’t give anything away, by the way), we see the cat, then the screen goes black and nothing more is seen of the cat. This aspect of the film can immerse you in it for a brief period of time, although the irritations that this brings can catapult you back to reality.I suppose that this method of making the audience think of what is happening can be quite entertaining for the most high brow thinkers. But for the rest of us, we don’t want to have to think and try to guess at what is happening on the screen, the film is supposed to show and tell us what is happening.The film also has a few other problems aside from the visual style, for instance the film is a very slow starter. This may be good for people who love to see an atmosphere built up and then reach a conclusion, but eve those kinds of people will be disappointed, this is because right when the actual demon comes out in the girl’s form (with the voice and everything), there is a brief exorcism, then the really confusing ending.The horror in The Last Exorcism is very psychological, actually I would say that it resorts more to setting up an atmosphere of dread and death, then not knowing what to do with it, and just when people would be getting interested the film ends.In summary, the visual style and effects of T.L.E can immerse you in the story, although the horror elements are lacking, the characters aren’t irritating, but they aren’t anything special. It’s a solid C horror film, it makes a few good steps, although those are outnumbered by the mistakes that are made.Jamie Walshe.