Ignore the ads you've seen so far, which splash the name of gore king Eli Roth and feature the image of a girl badly twisted in a demonic pose that would make Linda Blair crinkle her nose. This is no bloodbath, and the scares are purely psychological, springing from our continued fascination with false prophets and TV evangelists. Reverend Cotton Marcus(Patrick Fabian) is just such a fraud, or at least he used to be. As a young boy he was raised to be a religious prop, a child evangelical minister, paraded around and used to spread the good word while lining the church's pockets with his novelty. Over the years he grew increasingly disillusioned by the robotic nature of his flock, who were willing to believe literally anything he said. Cotton has the oily charisma of a used car salesman, and proves he can sell anything by preaching a banana bread recipe to his eager followers.
As he got older, Cotton decides to make amends. Now a father of his own, he doesn't want his son growing up believing in all the falsehoods he himself once peddled. In particular that of exorcism. Reading about a boy who was suffocated in the midst of the ritual, he gathers a camera crew together to debunk the myth that exorcisms actually work. He takes a case of demonic possession that leads him to the reddest area of rural Louisiana. An area full of local folklore and legend, perfect for Cotton to swoop in and turn their entire belief structure upside down. His arrival at the Sweetzer farm is met with just suspicion of his big city nature. Cotton is a complete shill, pretending to be part of the community he fully intends to disrupt.
Upon meeting Nell(Ashley Jordan), the 16 year old girl in need of cleansing, it's obvious something isn't right. The pixie-ish girl has been shacked up in her house ever since her extremely fundamentalist father took his family(including Nell's violent brother) out of circulation by removing them from church and school. Cotton has been pulling the wool over people's eyes for so long that he's keen to sensing lies, and he and his crew get the impression that Nell's problems have more to do with dear ol' Dad than some evil demon. At first, the plan is to simply go through the motions, convincing the family that her soul has been purged and hopefully walking away with nobody any the wiser. That is until matters suddenly take a turn for the extremely violent, and suddenly Cotton is forced to face the fact that his cynicism and parlor tricks might not be enough this time.
We've seen this set up before. The disillusioned man of God forced to confront his own faith. The Exorcist is the prime example, and frankly the only film that ever really got it right while also proving to be terrifying in it's own right. It's still the only movie that truly scared me. The Last Exorcism doesn't pack quite the same punch in that department, but it builds suspense like an old pro. Director Daniel Stamm ratchets up the tension without resorting to lame boom sounds for cheap scares. Essential to the believability of a film like this is that it come off as natural, otherwise the purpose of a documentary style is wasted. In that, Stamm has a ton of help in a couple of truly stand out performances, most notably Patrick Fabian as Cotton. As the charlatan, Fabian gives a dynamic, star making turn, full of nuance and subtle dark humor. Much like his character, Fabian literally sells this film to us. Everything hinges on him. Ashley Bell is good as Nell, toeing the line between frustrated teen and posessed victim.
Exorcism sells itself short in the final act, giving up on all the dread it had cultivated in favor of a frenetic, rushed conclusion that leaves too many questions unanswered. It's clear that they were going for a vague, puzzling conclusion similar to Blair Witch, and it doesn't really work. Blair Witch had the benefit of being almost totally ambiguous. There are some very definite answers given in The Last Excorcism.
Eli Roth, who produced the film, said that he wasn't intimidated by matching scares with The Exorcist
. "There's never been a scarier film than 'The Exorcist,'" said Roth, "but that doesn't mean you can't make a great scary movie." Couldn't have said it better myself, not even if I was posessed. 
