The Last Exorcism

The Last Exorcism takes the form of a fictional documentary about a disillusioned evangelist, The Rev. Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian) who has decided to end his own fraudulent career as an exorcist by having a film crew follow him through the tricks and trepidations of one last encounter with a rural family that has requested his services. The Sweetzer family—widowed farmer Louis (Louis Herthum) and two rather disturbed teenage children, Nell and Caleb—buy into the ministrations to one extent or another, but each of them has a more tangled and dangerous story than is at first evident. Soon enough, the intended exposé gets knocked for a mind-boggling loop—with results that are chilling at the very least and perhaps genuinely haunting as well. Fabian brings nicely understated conviction to the Cotton Marcus role; Caleb Landry Jones is eerily credible as a devilish teenaged redneck; and Ashley Bell is simply astonishing as Nell, who is deranged or abused or possessed, or all three. Feather River Cinemas and Tinseltown. Rated PG-13