Recently back from Oregon, where I was shooting my third episode with the folks at Paranormal State. It’s a trip and a half to be involved with the paranormal from the non-fiction side of things, not to mention the places I get to visit and the people I’ve met. Better still when my research skills actually prove useful on the case at hand.
Details closer to the season premiere, but this time out, once the case was over, I was pleased to accompany Ryan, Serg, Mike and Coalin to a showing of The Last Exorcism.
I’m a fan of The Exorcist, more so the book than the film, also loved The Blair Witch, and this was an intelligent combination. It was a smart, smart script with a great setup and great acting. Ashley Bell’s Nell totally rocks -- a shame if this demon girl doesn’t earn a place in the horror film canon. Likewise Patrick Fabian as Cotton Marcus, a preacher who finds his faith very late in the game, turns in a believable performance that does justice to the cagey script. There is much to admire here, and I don’t often admire much.
Sadly, as I’m sure other reviews have pointed out, what could have been a great film utterly dive bombs in the last five minutes, going from an A/A+ to a C. Audience members actually stood and said, “What?!” as the film ended.
Though annoying, I readily forgive the typical handheld-horror problems (specifically a: why haven’t you called the police yet and b: why haven’t you dropped the camera yet) but a sudden shift in plot, with little foreshadowing, felt more like an abandonment of the theme of faith the film had carefully developed rather than a fulfillment. Anyway, worth seeing, but deeply, deeply, flawed.
In other news, I’d be remiss not to mention the great write-up Stinky Dead Kid just got over at The Comics Journal, which reads in part, “Petrucha’s “diary” is, er, a dead-on tonal echo of Jeff Kinney’s wimpy prose…”
That’s it for now. Pax.
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