John Aldridge The Last Exorcism is well acted, and has a fairly good (but familiar) storyline. But everything else is just disappointing. From reviews, I was expecting an original new horror film. However, it takes about 45 minutes to get into the actual exorcism. The twist at the end doesn't make any sense at all, because the camera is all shaky and you really can't tell what is going on. There are also lots of random scary scenes, where the writer/director just thinks 'we will just put a scary scene there to make the movie interesting'. In fact, those scary scenes just make the movie pointless and boring. There are no particularly creepy shots, or atmosphere anywhere in the movie. Now, lets talk about the 'documentary' style to the film. It would have worked well, but the director decides to put eerie music in there. People who make documentaries do not just add some music in a documentary for effect. Also, some shots look like they are made to look like a normal movie, not a documentary. These aspects just make the style tacky, and not scary.I found Paranormal Activity quite boring, but that doesn't compare to this piece of crap.Overall: 1 out of 5 OR 2 out of 10 OR D-

therocefailure One of my favourites. A big problem with the horror genre -- and especially the possession genre -- is characters that you just don't care about. Nell is very easy to care about. She's a sweet girl from a bad background in a horrific situation that she didn't consent to or ask for. You want her to be okay. The only bad part, in my opinion, is - spoiler! - when she beats the cat to death with the camera. Skip that scene. it's just sad. Yes, it does cast a rather disparaging view on the exorcism, for lack of a better word, industry -- but for good reason. Ashley Bell's awards were well won -- her acting, contortion and natural characterisation of the sad Nell are impeccable.

GL84 With a film crew following his last days in the church, a skeptical preacher is called out to perform an exorcism on a remote farm and finds a far greater evil than he ever imagined and must summon all his faith and courage to combat the evil.This was an enjoyable if still somewhat problematic entry. One of it's biggest attributes is the fact that the shaking-camera footage is kept to a minimum throughout here despite the fact that this one is based around the found-footage concept which here is allowed to really showcase the action on-screen. Granted, it might not be a lot but there's still the point of this one keeping us really centered on the action and how enjoyable it is to be able to see what's going on without the blurring images and out-of-focus shots that typically render a lot of these types of films moot. Here, we get to see these all pretty much cleanly which enables the few action scenes to come off rather nicely in the second half where the race to get her out of the house before the father shows up and the finale's Satanic ceremony which is quite a bit of fun throughout the devilish incarnations and action throughout. That is certainly helped along by the different exorcism attempts earlier on where the inhuman actions and responses given to her condition really cement the idea of something out-of-the-ordinary going on and his obliviousness to it all in the face of his documentary attempt makes for some chilling times by exploiting the concept rather nicely. Still, these here don't really allow this one to truly overcome it's few flaws, mainly in the criminal lack of activity that this one undergoes in the middle portions of the film. It really has such little action that it throws in several outside characters merely to try to have some semblance of characters because it doesn't have much of a plot to string that kind of action off of, and leaving these scenes to consist of either endless wandering around the house doing nothing or spouting off inane backstories to keep up with the hoax of what he's accomplishing and neither of these are all that effective at making this one enjoyable. Likewise, the other big flaw here is the criminally underwhelming exorcism scenes that take place here, most notably the second one which is supposedly the true exorcism. The first one is for show and generally supposed to be weak, yet the main one here is really weak and not all that exciting, generally taking up space in the film with it's lack of seriousness and overall underwhelming results. These issues here do hold this one back though it is quite enjoyable nonetheless.Rated PG-13: Violence and Language.

bowmanblue Okay, as any horror fan knows, 'found footage' films are 'in' right about now. It seems anyone can run round shaking a camera for ninety minutes and call the result a 'found footage' horror film. The Last Exorcism is one of these 'found footage' films. This time a camera crew follows an exorcist on a job and… well, if you've ever seen (a) a found footage film or (b) and exorcism film, then you'll know what to expect.And you get just that. Some might say that that's a bad thing as everything is pretty predictable (and they're probably be right – there's nothing really that new here to see). However, it's not as terrible as most found footage films. The characters are believable and they don't make a hundred and one stupid decisions (maybe one or two, here and there, but that's still less than your average star of a horror movie), so the acting remains good and the camera not too wobbly.Of course the story descends into what you'd probably expect as the team get more than they bargain for.I won't say that anything here is a classic, so it's really down to whether you can be bothered sitting through – yet another – found footage film, combined with yet one more exorcism film. If you decide to give it a go, be gentle – like I say… it's no masterpiece, but watchable enough.http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/