The Last Exorcism was on telly the other night and, not having seen it and with little idea what it was about, I decided to sit down and watch. What I got was a kind of bigger budget take on The Blair Witch Project with shades of The Exorcist thrown in and, though the climax was a bit of a let-down, the remainder of the film was an intresting and intriguing one!

Cotton Marcus is a Preacher who follows in a long line of Preachers in his family. His main calling is as an Exorcist but a recent tragedy in the press has left him questioning his Faith. A young child, being Exorcised by a fellow Preacher, died after being suffocated by a plastic bag and this has lead Cotton to question his own fraudulent methods which until now he has managed to justify. He decides to expose the fraudulent nature of Exorcism and demonstrate how it is less about expelling Demons and more about giving the flock what they ask for and reaffirming their Faith. To this end, he begins to be accompanied by a film crew documenting his exploits.

Picking a letter at random, Cotton finds himself summoned to a small, rural farm. There, several livestock have been slaughtered and the father believes his daughter, Nell, is posessed. Cotton goes through his all his usual speil before performing an "Exorcism" accompanied by a few crafty tricks, some clever manipulation and much misdirection. He pronounces Nell clean, collects his fee and departs. But then Nell turns up at his Motel room, obviously distressed and Cotton begins to question his methods even more when he is forced to accept that Nell could in fact be mentally ill. Trying to convince her father that she requires Psychiatric treatment does not go down well and just makes matter worse. As he starts to wonder if there is something much deeper going on, Cotton begins to suspect that Nell may well be being mistreated. But the truth is something far, far worse......

This is a strange film that, for a mock documentary, takes quite some time to really get going. Much like Cotton's methods, there is much mis-direction going on throughout this film so you are never quite sure which way it is going to go. And when the inevitable does occur, it is merely as a prelude to the films rather precictable climax!

As a one-off, this is quite a good film to watch with no real scares or surprises but a couple of nasty moments towards the end. But I could not imagine wanting to watch this again.

I enjoyed it but not enough for subsequent watchings and I agree with a previous reviewer that adding a movie soundtrack to what is purported to be a "found" documentary a la Cloverfield just gives off a mixed message!

Still, this is a good effort and fully deserving of 4 *'s simply because it is better than average but far short of brilliant!