The Last Exorcism (2010)
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Reviews Counted: 148
Fresh: 108 | Rotten: 40
It doesn't fully deliver on the chilly promise of its Blair Witch-style premise, but The Last Exorcism offers a surprising number of clever thrills.
Average Rating: 6.2/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 21 | Rotten: 8
It doesn't fully deliver on the chilly promise of its Blair Witch-style premise, but The Last Exorcism offers a surprising number of clever thrills.
liked it
Average Rating: 2.7/5
User Ratings: 71,198
My Rating
Movie Info
Disillusioned charlatan Reverend Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) comes face to face with pure evil after recruiting a documentary film crew to capture the final exorcism of his career. For years, Reverend Marcus has taken advantage of the faithful and desperate. Now it's time for him to finally come clean. Just as Reverend Marcus prepares to shoot the film that will set the record straight, he receives an urgent letter from a desperate farmer. The devil has taken possession of his beloved
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Cast
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Patrick Fabian
Cotton Marcus, Reverend... -
Ashley Bell
Nell Sweetzer -
Iris Bahr
Iris Reisen -
Louis Herthum
Louis Sweetzer -
Caleb Jones
Caleb Sweetzer -
Tony Bentley
Pastor Manley -
John Wright, Jr.
John Marcus -
Shanna Forrestall
Shanna Marcus -
Justin Shafer
Justin Marcus -
Carol Sutton
Shopkeeper -
Victoria Patenaude
Motorist -
John Wilmot
Spindly Man -
Becky Fly
Becky Davis -
M Denise Lee
Nurse -
Logan Craig Reid
Logan Winters -
Sofia Hujabre
Cafe Manager -
Adam Grimes
Daniel Moskowitz
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The Last Exorcism Trailer & Photos
All Critics (149) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (111) | Rotten (40) | DVD (8)
The only thing finally astonishing about The Last Exorcism is its goofiness.
Top CriticThe latest entry in the pseudo-documentary horror film sweepstakes, The Last Exorcism has its terrifying moments and its silly ones.
The credibility of faux-documentary filmmaking relies on clear plotting and convincing, semi-improvised acting.
A creepy, smartly written and very entertaining low-budget chiller.
An unusually restrained and genuinely eerie little movie perched at the intersection of faith, folklore and female puberty.
Stamm creates an anxious psychological horror that's vaguely familiar yet refreshingly original.
A fairly absorbing pseudo-documentary demonic-possession flick with all the bodily contortions and jittery camerawork you'd expect.
Even if you take "The Last Exorcism" on its own terms, you're going to be in for quite an uneventful movie.
Its mature focus on characterization really sets the film apart.
The seams are obvious in this faux documentary, but the thrills are fairly genuine.
If you make a film about exorcism, you better be ready to be compared to one of the best films ever made. Surprisingly, the film holds its own in that regard.
An appropriately goofy and enthusiastic presentation of a B-movie programmer that's not quite as annoying as it should be.
Briskly paced, with strong performances across the board, and the script keeps you guessing... But be sceptical of claims that it's possessed of genius.
Does a great job of sustaining tension by distracting you with (get this) interesting characters and a novel approach.
...ultimately fares a whole lot better in its first half than in its second...
Satan stalks the bible belt, as the occult locks horns so to speak, with free lance forensics, family dysfunction, and more sociopathic urges. And a not too hip Lucifer who thinks he's offering a doubting demon buster man of the cloth a 'blowing job.'
The Last Exorcism is a tasty slice of religious themed exploitation of little innovation, yet with plenty of thrills.
Unfortunately the predictable and unoriginal finale undermines the overall impact.
If you're not too found-footaged out after two Paranormal Activities in the past year, The Last Exorcism is sure to be good for a bad, shaky-cam fright or three.
The Last Exorcism is a rare reminder that the genre label "horror" derives from the word horrifying, not horrible.
A perfectly acceptable, rather low key addition to the horror-mockumentary genre, following a fraudulent Pastor who's decided to allow a camera crew to film one last job extracting the devil from an innocent girl.
Unfortunately, at about the half-way point, the brittle mood so carefully created by the single-camera coverage is broken by multi-camera editing and the overlaying of creepy music, just like in standard horror fare.
The viewer is placed squarely in the position of anonymous documentarian in this charmingly comic, ably performed, surprisingly sincere and often chilling first-person funhouse of a film.
The climax owes a debt to a seminal 1960s horror film which it would be unfair to name -- suffice it to say the comparison doesn't do The Last Exorcism any favours.
The conceit of the premise is entirely plausible and there is enough character establishment in the preparatory scenes to build engagement on a deeper level.What's more, it has something of a twist at the end
Audience Reviews for The Last Exorcism
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Reverend Cotton Marcus: If you believe in God, then you gotta believe in the Devil.
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- Nell Sweetzer: Hey, Kitty kitty. [begins stabbing cat to death while video taping it]
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- Cotton Marcus: Is that regular water?
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- Nell Sweetzer: Hey priest, want a blowing job?!
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Latest News on The Last Exorcism
January 23, 2012:
Last Exorcism Sequel Starts MovingAshley Bell will reprise her role from the first film, with Ed Glass-Donnelly on board to direct...
August 30, 2010:
Box Office Guru Wrapup: Exorcism's Chills Beat Takers' ThrillsThis weekend, the summer movie season saw its first - and last - horror title to debut at number one...
August 27, 2010:
Critics Consensus: The Last Exorcism Is Devilishly ScaryThis week at the movies, we've got demonic possession (The Last Exorcism, starring Patrick Fabian...
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Foreign Titles
- Le dernier exorcisme (FR)
- El último exorcismo (ES)
The found-footage genre has been abused so many times since The Blair Witch Project's surprise success, I think the only reason that it was used in The Last Exorcism was to bring in the money. But this is surprisingly not your typical run of the mill fare. There's this weird presumption nowadays that if a horror film is made to look like it was captured on a handheld camera that it will scare us more. The idea itself is preposterous and this film is proof. It manages to be creepy, thought provoking and eery without the full use of it's mockumentary style. However this is a criticism rather than a compliment, it failed to sew that illusion after the first 30 minutes. So the way it's been filmed is a failure. Other than that there are several problems. There is a lack of long and tense builds ups, a slow and overly self-explanatory beggining, and possibly one of the worst endings in recent memory. After having a good 50 minutes or so of incredibly convincing performances (particularly the promising Ashley Bell), a good number of well directed frights and some rough character development it throws absolutely everything out the window by wimping out with a brainless, unimaginative and very cliched cop out finale. To forgive it and then say the film is a solid horror piece would be absolutely pushing it. But this is the first genuinely creepy film with an Eli Roth production credit. I think his debut film Cabin Fever is acceptable, and I think the Hostel movies are lame and predictable. But backing off as producer he has teamed up with a director who knows what he's doing, up to a point. Despite it's lack of originality, it's horrible ending and it's genetic predictability, The Last Exorcism overall never fails to intrigue.