[psycho d]

The Last Exorcism (2010). Ambiguous is that person sitting across from me on the bus. Ambiguous is the origin of the meat in this here hillbilly pot pie. Ambiguous is my interest in my new 18 y/o neighbor. Ambiguous is not, on the other hand, the ending of The Last Exorcism, unless of course you are one of those rare people that suffers from anti-imagination complex.

Now if you hate docu-horrors, then stay away. You will hate this film. And that's fine. But that does not make this a bad movie, just a bad movie for you. My guess is that this film suffers from another complex, over-hyped post-production malaise. Nothing kills a movie more than an avalanche of media hype. But alas, where am I going with all of this? No idea really.

The story itself was actually pretty original. Heck of a time to be getting out of the business though. I rather enjoyed the way the story didn't fall prey to the normal patterns, but rather thrust and parried its way to its ending. It gave just enough details to make for a plausible ending, but still ended in a twisty, read not ambiguous, fashion.

The acting was pretty solid all around. Patrick Fabian was a treat to watch. I loved how his capacity to ridicule built slowly and surely, starting out as a nice guy but ending as a lovable prick. The rest of the cast was adept as well. I thought the son was exceptionally slimy. Some of their choices of action were laughable, but what horror flick exhibits characters that do right by reality and just turn tail at the first opportunity? Camera guy and sound chick really should have made good on their fears and fled, but then again that would have been the end of the flick.

Another word on the ending, hopefully without giving anything away. Yeah, it was a tad cheesy, a bit contrived, and the character's choices were a little less than genuine. I know that I would have been less than courageous given the circumstances. But to call the ending ambiguous and lazy- I don't think so. It made perfect sense and was even connected to earlier events. If you want to hate this movie, fine, and if you didn't understand the ending then, well, I can't help ya there. Sounds like someone needs some Ginko.

Thankfully moving on, that camera was pretty shaky, but it really seemed to give this flick a more authentic feel. The direction and other technicalities did their job and made for an authentic feeling movie. What did not work, at least in effecting a sense of authenticity, was the score. How in the heck did that music get there in the first place. Had Satan been involved I am sure that there would have been some rather different choices of music. Other than that the score worked fine.

Overall this was a fun horror entry for this emerging genre, which I thought had been born and then died with Blair Witch. I am now convinced that there will still be a messy plethora of bad, and maybe a couple more good, shaky camera horror flicks to watch and then dis. Merci.
d