FILM REVIEW OF ''THE LAST EXORCISM" (2010)

"The Last Exorcism" (**** OUT OF ****) amounts to something more than the abysmal "Blair Witch Project." This above-average, 87-minute, Lionsgate release doesn't rely entirely on wobbly camera movements for its impact. Indie Teutonic director Daniel Stamm lenses the action as if it were a straight-forward documentary. Meantime, a sense of irony permeates this unobtrusive epic that isn’t entirely apparent on initial viewings. The chief difference between "The Last Exorcism" and "The Blair Witch Project" is its sophistication that I missed when I saw it the first two times. Stamm employs the cinema vérité camera style when he wants you on the edge of your seat. Mind you, nothing scary happens up front. Audiences who crave blood and gore may feel cheated. Just when you think you might see something bloodcurdling, Stamm cuts away to a reaction shot of people looking at what you want to see. Any shots in "The Last Exorcism" that would have required blood and gore as well as slashed up body parts were omitted. In one scene, the demon-possessed girl kills an angry white cat, and its remains look like a heap of bloody rags. Rated PG-13, "The Last Exorcism" uses the single-camera approach to accentuate its suspense and the tension.  Nevertheless, Stamm spawns a surfeit of suspense and tension by playing it cool. "The Last Exorcism" does pale by comparison with the mother of all exorcism movies "The Exorcist" and lacks a tenth of "The Exorcist's" impact.  Meantime, Stamm and his scribes create some genuinely creepy atmosphere in the remote backwoods settings where "The Last Exorcism" occurs and many of the home-grown performers are convincing, especially Patrick Fabian as a minister who is having a crisis of faith.  This one point eight million dollar film was a success, earning over $40 million domestically.

 

Indeed, "Broken Condom" scenarists Huck Botka and Andrew Gurland establish the character of the protagonist, Reverend Cotton Marcus of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as a sympathetic fellow who wants to expose exorcism as a scam. In Cotton's own words, he doesn't want to read about another unfortunate adolescent dying because an exorcist wrapped a bag around the child's head in his zeal to oust a demon. Cotton (Patrick Fabian of "Must Love Dogs"), has been preaching since he was knee high to a pulpit. He comes from a long family line of preachers who also served as exorcists. His father, Reverend John Marcus (John Wright, Jr. of "Waiting Room"), has performed 150 exorcisms, and Cotton carried out his first exorcism when he was age ten. Cotton's father owns a 'who's who' of all the demons. He keeps this vintage leather-bound volume written in Latin locked up in an office safe. Nevertheless, Cotton isn’t entirely happy with his career as an exorcist and he wants to atone. 

Like the religious figures in all exorcist movies, Cotton is wrestling with his conscience about what he has done in the name of God. Cotton confides in us that exorcisms are more popular now than ever. He brandishes a newspaper article about an exorcist academy that the Vatican has instituted to help combat the scarcity of exorcists. He makes his agenda clear from the beginning.  "What I want to do is expose exorcism for the scam that it really is, and that's why we're doing this.  So if I can help expose it for what it really is and save one kid from having a plastic bag wrapped around his face that sounds like God's work." Cotton has a pile of exorcism requests stacked up on his desk. He selects an 'urgent' letter at random. A single-parent, Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum of "In the Electric Mist") of Ivanwood, Louisana, who believes his 16-year-old daughter, Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell of "The Truth about Angels"), is afflicted with demonic possession. Of course, Cotton thinks all the poor girl is suffering from is schizophrenia. Louis shows Cotton a disemboweled cow in his barn. When Cotton talks to Nell, he finds some disturbing artwork, but he believes he can handle this case with relative ease.
 

Unfortunately, Reverend Marcus finds himself in a bigger predicament. Initially, he conducted an exorcism—that he faked with a magician's finesse—and everything went off without a hitch. Nell recovered. Cotton counted Lewis' money. Cotton and his camera crew left the premises to spend the time in a motel. Cotton didn't tell the Sweetzers where they were checking in for the night. Imagine Cotton's surprise when Nell shows up at their motel. He carries Nell to the local hospital, and they discover Nell is pregnant. When Louis learns the truth, he swears that a demon has raped his virgin daughter. Earlier, Louis' oddball son, Caleb Sweetzer (Caleb Landry Jones of "No Country for Old Men"), had told Cotton that his father was a drunkard. Predictably, Cotton suspects Louis may have raped his daughter. Meantime, Louis demands that Cotton perform another exorcism. Louis is fully prepared to kill his own daughter with a shotgun to save her immortal soul if Cotton refuses. Cotton and his camera crew find Nell's latest art work, and the unseen photographer doesn't like the idea that he is depicted in the picture as a man without a head. At this point, things really begin to twist and turn.
 

The genius of "The Last Exorcism" lays in its superb sense of irony. The first-act is flawless as we watch Cotton prepare his charade.  By the second and third acts, you realize this is more than just another found footage flick and that Cotton is battling more than simple superstition. This movie wallows in its own sense of irony because Cotton refuses to believe in demons. Since he rejects demons, Cotton has lost his faith. Indeed, he presents an expose of his own exorcism and demonstrates how he uses a sound system to frighten his clients. A local minister and his obese wife serve as comic relief, but "The Last Exorcism" doesn't conjure up many laughs because it is so powerful. Stamm knows how to generate suspense, without calling attention to his real agenda. This chiller boils down to a compelling an expose about a non-believer who confronts the reality of a world he abhors. "The Last Exorcism" succeeds as a memorable exercise of terror because the filmmakers shun blood and gore so we cannot take our eyes off the exorcism.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE DEVIL INSIDE" (2012)

The horror chiller "The Devil Inside" (O out of ****) gives movies about exorcism a bad name. Face it, William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" (1973) still ranks as the best exorcist movie of all time. Nothing made since then can match the impact of this landmark movie, least of all its lackluster sequels. Nevertheless, Hollywood continues to crank out new movies about exorcism as if time had eroded the demonic fury of "The Exorcist.” Warner Brothers did the next best thing; in 2000, they re-released Friedkin's frightening film in a revamped version that performed startlingly well at the box office. Lately, the studios have conjured up three exorcism movies. Sir Anthony Hopkins starred in the respectable hair-raiser "The Rite" back in the spring of 2011. Sadly, "The Rite" bore a PG-13 rating so it possessed little bite. The low-budget, Louisiana-set, yell-bent yarn "The Last Exorcism" preceded "The Rite" by several months, but it furnished more irony than chills. Now, Paramount Pictures has released writer & director William Brent Bell's micro-budget "The Devil Inside," another misguided entry in the pseudo-documentary, ‘found footage’ genre. Like “The Blair Witch Project,” “Cloverfield,” and the “Paranormal Activity” trilogy, "The Devil Inside" sets out to enhance its simulated verisimilitude by featuring a character who documents the action on video. Neither “The Blair Witch Project” nor “Cloverfield” exploited this approach with any success. Moreover, none of the subtlety and artistry which exemplified the "Paranormal Activity" epics augments this abrupt 87-minute gobbledygook. Worse, "The Devil Inside" regales us with lukewarm exorcism scenes and lackluster performances. You know an exorcism movie is in trouble when a barking dog provides its scariest moment.

Attractive Isabella Rossi (Brazilian-born actress Fernanda Andrade of "Why Am I Doing This?") is the daughter of Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley of "Wild about Harry”) who went berserk back in 1989. "The Devil Inside" opens with Maria's cryptic phone conversation with a 911 operator and her confession that she killed two priests and a nun during an exorcism at her house. Afterward, we're treated to a behind-the-scenes peep at the gory crime scene; detectives wander through the blood-splattered residence in confidential footage mocked up to resemble grainy, decades old VHS tape. Ultimately, the court rules Maria is guilty by reason of insanity when she slew the three people. Eventually, Maria winds up heavily sedated in Rome, Italy, at the Centrino Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Director William Brent Bell fast-forwards to December 2009. A grown-up Isabella, who was only a child when her mother slaughtered the Catholics, hires documentary filmmaker Michael Schaefer (Ionut Grama of "The Whistleblower") to chronicle her mom's case. Basically, she wants to learn whether her mom is possessed by a demon or is mentally ill. Furthermore, she wants to convince herself that whatever happened to mom won’t happen to her. In other words, does demon possession or mental illness run in her family?

Isabella and Michael fly to Rome to visit Maria. While she is in the Eternal City, Isabella sits in on an exorcism lecture at a Catholic school. Afterward, she meets a couple of clerics, Father Ben Rawlings (Simon Quarterman of "The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior") and Father David Keane (Evan Helmuth of "Fever Pitch"), who are pretty liberal minded about exorcisms. If the Church refuses to countenance an exorcism, then this dynamic duo deliver the demons on the sly without the church’s blessing. Isabella wants to know more about exorcisms, and she is prepared to get a Ph.D. in demon possession. However, Rawlings advises Isabella to forgo any more exorcist classes. Instead, he invites her to witness an exorcist with David and him. Isabella's first exorcism occurs in the basement of a house in Rome. Rawlings and Keane use modern-day gadgets to support them. They outfit their patients with a heart monitor and photograph the size of the patient’s pupils to determine their actual condition. The young Italian girl, Rosa (Bonnie Morgan of “Piranha”), who they exorcise spews some profanity and has her period. At one point, she breaks her bonds and scuttles up a wall like a roach, but the priests cast out her demon. Isabella is now prepared to meet her mom.

Maria surprises Isabella when she reminds her daughter that an abortion she consented to years before won't put her in God's good graces. Naturally, Isabella is appalled by this revelation from somebody who hasn't seen her in twenty years. Later, the Fathers attach Maria to their gadgets, and she surprises them. Not only does she utter epithets in several tongues, but she also clobbers Father Rawlings and sends him flying across the room. Nothing that either Isabella or the Fathers discover about Maria convinces the Vatican to review Maria's case. As it turns out, the Vatican has long since washed its hands of Maria. This surprises our protagonists despite the fact that Maria killed three ordained exorcists back in 1989. Meantime, Father Keane experiences feelings of paranoia, and he has good reason. The devil inside Maria has taken residence up in him! Keane almost drowns an infant during a baptism. Later, he relieves a Roman cop of his firearm and finishes himself off. Of course, Michael is speechless. Unfortunately, this all this creates chaos of another kind which is more calculated to make you cackle rather than cringe.

"The Devil Inside" isn’t as scary as “The Exorcist.” The closest Bell's film comes to scary is creepy. Ultimately, however, creepy degenerates into campy. Nothing in this pedestrian horror movie will make you sleep with the lights on all night. The disclaimer at the outset that "the Vatican does not endorse this movie” shouldn’t surprise anybody. Worse, Bell and co-producer Michael Peterman wrap up everything far too quickly with an abrupt ending that sabotages any sense of closure. The last shot contains a website address (www.TheRossiFiles.com.)where all the answers are presumably available. Mind you, this is a terrible way to conclude a movie, but then “The Devil Inside” isn’t worth a Hail Mary.