The Last Exorcism films

I'm going to take a look at the found-footage film The Last Exorcism and it's recent, non-found footage sequel. (I recommend you listen to spill.com's audio review of the second film.)

The Last Exorcism:
Reverend Cotton Marcus has performed several exorcisms in the past, and is working with a documentary crew to prove they are all a scam. He claims to have performed at least a dozen fake exorcisms, and the documentary crew is here to film his last one. He travels to the countryside to meet Louis Sweetzer, a man who claims his sweet (no pun intended) daughter Nell is possessed by a demon, named Abalam. Cotton begins his usual tricks to show that the exorcism is fake, but when strange things begin to happen while the cameras are on, Cotton and his team begin to feel that this troubled girl's issues may be a little too real. The performances by the main cast are pretty good for a horror film (especially nowadays). Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr, and Louis Herthrum give pretty good performances as the main characters. There are some scenes in here that are absolutely terrifying, others kind of fall flat, a rather mixed bag, to be honest. But the final sequence is very disturbing, even if it goes a little overboard. The horror elements work very well, as does some of the drama. This film isn't a modern masterpiece, but it's one of the better scary movies that have come out in the past 5 years. The Last Exorcism is a worthwhile horror film, checkit out some time. 3/5 stars.


The Last Exorcism Part II:
Nell Sweetzer has no recollection of what happened to her in the first film, but is put in a girls' home in New Orleans, and life seems to be going good. But when strange things start happening to her again, she must take the help of a secret society of voodoo priests to stop Abalam's destructive power. Although Ashley Bell tries to give another good performance, this script just doesn't work. Many of the scares are funnier than they are scary. The romantic subplot for Nell is stupid, and the fact that the voodoo priests are barely helpful makes their whole part in this movie useless. The movie's ending sounds like the middle of a movie. And at the end, Nell does the most selfish thing anyone can do, and it makes her an unlikeable c*nt. Yep, that's what she is. It's totally called for. The special effects are dreadful, the ending is awful and nonsensical, and the entire film is dull. 1/5 stars.