Review: The Last Exorcism

SPOILER WARNING

I went to a movie with some girlfriends yesterday. It was the first time in months I'd been to see anything, so the entire experience was totally thrilling for me... and quite amazing when you consider that the last time I was a regular movie-goer, all it took was ten bucks to get you a show and some popcorn.





The Last Exorcist left me scratching my head and my heart. It's not so much that I was trying to decide if I loved it or hated it, but rather that I found it simultaneously brilliant and mindbogglingly moronic, and that while the film itself was not frightening, it's potential impact on society and on the modern view of exorcism terrified me.

Let me say right off the bat that this is not an "important" film. I live with this faint hope that every new movie on the topic of demonology I might see will somehow finally have it all together and give an accurate portrayal of demonic activity. One that incorporates a proper worldview, accurate description of symptoms, and cuases, and a healthy and skeptical view of psychology.
This was not one of those, although it contained elements which gave me the impression throughout that this might finally be it. It was very disappointing.

There is a current trend in Hollywood to discredit and mock Christianity. Even in the previews, that element was magnified throughout each clip, so I wasn't totally surprised to see the film open on a total mockery of your average evangelical charismatic experience.
The scene opens on a typical Southern Sunday morning- a nice looking family is getting ready for Church. The Pastor is preaching and the place is hopping. Literally. It's a pentacostal/holiness type environment. Very charismatic.
As the scene unravels, it becomes clear that the pastor who is preaching operates out of total hilarity instead of sincerity. Everything is a joke to him, and as he explains to the off-screen cameraman filming his documentary, it's all a manipulation.

I'm not the type of person to get bent out of shape and outraged over films mocking Christianity... after all, I believe in Eternal Justice. And in personal freedoms. However, I wasn't quite braced for the immensity of the mocking that was about to ensue. At the same time, as I watched it unfold, I found myself wanting to stand up and cheer-- because the "Christianity" that it was mocking is EXACTLY why I left the protestant world and came home to Rome. Manipulation of the senses, incomplete theology, and a general sense that one must leave one's intellect at the door all contributed to this feeling that there had to be more out there. The opening of this film is all about that.

The film opens with the story of the family of a pastor named Cotton Marcus who "fell into" pastoring because he was a pastor's kid. Like all PKs, he grew up seeing the "fill-the-pews business" in action. Preaching his first packed house at the ripe old age of ten, Cotton grew up speaking Christianese and simultaneously wondering what the heck was going on around him when he knew others were "faking it" too. Part of his upbringing was, of course, deliverance work, something all the God-fearing men before him appear to have had a special "gifting" for, as evidenced by the Really Old Book he inherits from his father which contains-- get this-- the names of all the demons in existence.

Ok, break to my inner facepalm moment. Why? Because I've been in the deliverance field for over 12 years and I've never in my life encountered a person or book that could name ALL the demons. At the same time, in 12 years, I've probably encountered more than 10, 000 people/books/apps which claim to.
A demon's name is virtually irrelevant. It will tell you something about his character if you are a very old, very learned, very experienced exorcist. Other than that, there is not a person on the planet, Fr Gabriel Amorth included, who "knows all the demons' names." And we don't have to! The fact is, it truly isn't all that important. A name is not a magic formula that gives you power over someone, despite what all the goth kids in high school wanted you to believe. The only name which will one day cause all knees to bow is Jesus.
Superstition and pride abound in this field, and of all the giant red flags I have that go up when I'm partnered with an inexperienced deliverance minister, the Name Game is one of the most obvious. It is a myth and fallacy that we must first discover a fallen angel's name before casting it out. It is often not even necessary to know anything about it at all-- virtually everything which comes out of a demon's "mouth" is a lie from the pit of hell anyhow, designed to confuse and obstruct the exorcist. It's as painful to hear someone claim to have a "resource" for demonic names as it is to watch Ryan Buell hush his paranormal group when he writes "THE NAME" of the alleged demon that's following him on a mysterious hidden piece of paper, further shocking his audience for wow-value when he reveals the alleged-name-we-cannot-say over TELEVISION for all to repeat if his hypothesis is correct, thus theoretically condemning all his viewers to a life of pursuit by said dangerous demon.
If there's anything I've learned in all these years, it's that most demons are quite dumb (not in an intelligence sense- they are clearly more "knowledgeable" than you or I, but in a personality sense) because the majority of demons people encounter are lower echalon, bottom-of-the-barrel critters who operate solely on the orders and at the command of other demons which certainly don't have time bothering most individual people. They are busy commanding nations and battlefields, hovering patiently over the UN, the Denver airport, and the Vatican in thick clouds of darkness. Heehee.

OK, back to the movie. So there I was, sitting in my seat, kind of outraged at my own self as I giggled helplessly over the sheer brilliance of this guys' perfect fake-out of the Christian walk. At the same time, I wanted to cheer-- this stuff NEEDS to be said! It needs to be addressed in Christianity today, it is something we Christians find very uncomfortable for a good enough reason. It's the uncomfortable truth that shows that "Churchiness" doesn't work. There is no power in churchiness.

The purpose of the film was to document him doing an exorcism in order to demonstrate that exorcism is bogus. At first, you're thinking-- what a creep. But then you realize, this is a man acting on a powerful personal conviction. He explains that seeing a child who was harmed during an exorcism ritual is the cause behind his gig. Completely outraged, he decided once and for all to expose exorcism for what it is: a fraud that makes people who THINK they are possessed feel better.

In order to do this he has a literal bag of tricks-- a smoking crucifix, rings that push voltage through a person causing them to seize, speakers and fake demon growls, and fishing line designed to secretly move items around the room. The Works. Cotton is determined to do this for a good cause-- after all he wants to help the children, right? And this is where it begins to get frustrating to me.

In a moment of explanation when you, the viewer, are really connecting with him and his "good heart," he holds up a document (an ACTUAL document) put out by the Vatican which describes their new School of Exorcism. And proceeds to talk about how annoying it is to him that this is allowed...as if just any yahoo off the street can now become a Vatican-Sanctioned exorcist.

No. A Roman Catholic exorcist is a demonstrably mature Roman Catholic Priest appointed by a Bishop, thus a responsible single male with six years of theological and interpersonal training and eduction, either assisted by or himself a psychologist and / or medical doctor. That's not the kind of level-headed approach to the topic that his anger is directed at. And it's misleading to the viewers who are watching this movie, as I am, shaking their heads "YES, Cotton, preach it! This whole exorcism thing is out of control!"

So, there we have Big Mistake Number One: equating Roman Catholicism to Protestantism.... our methods are not their methods. Our ways are not their ways. First of all, we INVENTED exorcism... or rather, the methods we use were directly taught by Our Lord to the Apostles and they haven't changed a bit since then-- that is, until Vatican II, but don't get me started.:P

All this to say that the image of Bob Larsen, exorcist, on TV slathering foreheads in holy oil or even that Cotton himself is using-- well, those images are Catholic in nature because we have sacramentals. We believe that OBJECTS can hold power, either positive or negative, and by the authority of our Church we use these items to do good and advance the Kingdom of God. Protestant theology is a bit shaky in this department- and certainly inconsistent (if you use an object in a rite or ritual, by what authority is the object consecrated one way or the other? Aren't you putting your faith in an object and not God, directly? It's ok for you to plant stakes with scripture written on them at the four corners of your house, but it's not ok for me to burn incense and think it's "doing something?" etc etc.) These questions are no bother to a Catholic because we have a clear cut, logical and sensible answer to every "why?" But they are very bothersome to someone like me when I see a protestant person use them. In fact, they scream superstition...
I have infinitely more respect for protestant persons in the deliverance field who exorcise demons by the power of prayer through faith alone (and maybe the laying on of hands) than those protestants who brandish crosses with zeal and slap the demonized around theatrically with their Bibles. But I digress.

Cotton's "Last Exorcism" is on a seriously secluded farm in backwoods Louisiana. Awesome setting for us paranormal people, who know that Louisiana is indeed a dark and mysterious area. He is accompanied by an impossibly hip young woman wearing -- seriously?-- red Doc Martens, and an invisible camera man we never really meet.
The first few moments of his creep up the dirt road leading to the Sweetzer farm we encounter the Sweetzer son, an obviously disturbed young man whom we are certain is going to be The One. However upon further investigation, we are told that it's really his impossibly sweet younger sister who is the possessed person, as explained by her highly gullible, hard working, God-fearing alcoholic father. The mother has died, and the well-intentioned but thoroughly ignorant father, determined to teach the children some religion, has pulled the kids out of school AND Sunday school with the local pastor, whom he found to be just "not enough" as far as instilling The True Faith goes.

Lo and behold, Cotton manages to manipulate the dad into giving the girl an exorcism, and he goes upstairs to rig the room so that he can deliver the powerful theatrics he came ready to show us, the viewers.
Up until this point, I'm thoroughly entertained-- engrossed even-- in the plot and definitely interested to see what transpires, although I've already guessed that "this time" things aren't going to go exactly as smoothly as he had planned. Moving along in the story, he conducts the fake exorcism, fake delivers the girl, and then goes home to a nasty motel with his crew where he will wait for morning.

And that's when it gets interesting, although you wouldn't know it from the choppy editorial choices and the sheer chaos that represents the transition into the film's "Deeper" plot. The girl somehow makes it to his hotel room and , as if in a trance, proceeds with what can only be described as classic horror flick scene complete with oatmeal-looking vomit and a small taste of potential lesbian foreplay. I was kinda like... REALLY? It was a true disappointment that the movie had taken such a generic turn, but I accepted that it "had to be" if the movie was going to continue on the path it was on towards true symptomatic possession.

I'll spare you the details, because quite honestly, they are pretty much the standard for exorcism-genre movies and you've seen or heard almost all of them before.... little girl with wierd drawings, memory lapses, sudden strange behavior which progresses in creepiness, and suddenly the flick got downright WEIRD.

I have a true distaste for slasher flicks. While I absolutely LOVE horror films, I don't usually watch them if they are graphically violent. I'm not interested in seeing people be dismembered or in watching buckets of blood splatter in every direction. I like psychological thrillers- movies that make you think. I don't mind a little graphic bloodshed, but I draw the line at gratuitous violence, and this movie is FULL of gratuitous violence. I had to sit and watch a cat get torn to pieces. Literally. Virtually every interaction with the possessed girl was drenched in blood and guts... even random nasty eye poking. Yuck. Now, I will say that I've seen enough actual demonic disregard for the human body to know that things CAN and sometimes do get utterly disgusting. But the reality of that experience is far more sober and less gleeful. It's heartbreaking to see a person cut himself or another. It's not the kind of thing you want to be shoving fistfuls of popcorn in your mouth at, which was what the people around us seemed to be doing... and that's because the director didn't show the violence of possession in an intelligent, realistic manner. This was obviously all about the horror-genre glory in blood and guts.

In a world where people will actually pay money to see SIX (or however many) movies about a stupid wheelchair bound clown-faced creep who devises and implements torture methods onscreen for two hours a piece (SAW, I'm looking in your direction, and I'm not smiling, you sick bastards...) I guess I just have to accept that mind-numbing visual violence that utterly negates the HUMANNESS of the human body is something Hollywood is OK with promoting. Surprise!

However, there were some incredible connections that stirred me on some level as well. The suspense was well-handled, although often quite contrived. The representations of the symptoms of possessions were also well-handled, yet at other times completely off-target. I found myself getting extremely uncomfortable in certain scenes that hit too close to home...Scenes that were all too familiar to those of us who have encountered the devil's handiwork in so obvious a way. The darkening of the eyes, constricting and bubbling of the throat, and unnatural movements, contortions and noise-throwing, conversations with invisible persons which clammed up as Cotton and his crew walked in the door... these were exaggerated, but certainly brought me back to places and situations that have left me changed and unnerved to say the least.
On the other hand, Cotton's obvious TOTAL naivete with regards to actual demonic possession (and -- hello, it's a horror movie-- TOTAL lack of common sense) left me literally wanting to shout at the screen. Aside from the classic "WHAT are you doing?" and "DON'T GO IN THERE" moments I was struggling to contain, I was also holding back "YOU IDOT! IT'S A DEMON, ALL IT DOES IS LIE!" and "IF YOU THINK YOU CAN CONTAIN YOUR PROBLEM LIKE THAT, YOU ARE A MORON. WHAT PART OF NOT A PHYSICAL ENTITY DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND?"
Fortunately for my friends and fellow movie-goers, I managed to hold most of it in. :P

We follow the "girl has demon" plot for quite a while, trying to pick our way through random pieces of info ("she's pregnant!" "she's only psychotic!") and to dissect our own judgements ("her dad's the father! no! It's the brother!) and I admit, it's definitely intreguing, albeit mostly inconsistent with what I know about actual possession and exorcism.
A few examples: While the girl is having possessed "episodes," she is unconscious and/or unaware. Outside of these, she doesn't have a sweet clue there is anything inside her. This is totally inconsistent with my life experience,in which people who seek help for demonization are fully aware that they are doing things they don't want to do and are often acting against their own wills. Yes, they can lose consciousness and "make room" for the demon, but more often than not with a little prying we find they are perfectly aware of the difficulties they encounter in living a "normal" life AS THEY WOULD LIKE. (for example, they experience mental confusion whenever they go to pray, and are aware of this fact.)You don't submit to an exorcism because someone ELSE wants you to. At least, I hope not.
Secondly, there is ordinarily a very distinct break in a person's pre-possessed and post-possessed personality. People become markedly different, whereas she remains as sweet and innocent and naive as ever with no major change in personality.

Nevertheless, we press on, watching her go from bad to worse and wondering what Cotton is going to do to help her. What was cool about what ensued was that when Cotton finally came to believe she was possessed and not crazy, some glimmer of actual faith began to propel him and he offered her a second exorcism, promising that this one would, indeed, work. As the power of his faith is unleashed, the exorcism proceeds in the usual manner (and in a super creepy looking shack, no less) with Surprise! the arrival of the ACTUAL demon Cotton had unleashed from his Super Old Demon Name Book with the rudder-like power of his smooth-talking charismatic tongue only hours before in the Sweetzer living room. Only SURPRISE! (Yes, again.)The girl is faking it.... her own super-innocence gives her away and the audience is left schizophrenically shifting from certain conviction of her actual possession to unswerving faith in her total insanity or victimhood and mental capacity to make it up and back again.

At this point, despite the lack of realism and the unoriginal gimmickness factor, I was thoroughly engrossed in the story and entertained.

And that's when it happened- the story line took a turn I was so baffled by I'm still shaking my head going WHAT? WHY??

Ultimately, the ending was enraging. On a purely film/art basis, I was utterly disgusted with the choice to cheese it up and make an obviously unrealistic and purposely idiotic ending.
Cotton discovers that virtually every character we've encountered thus far is a member of a satanic coven engaged in a black mass-type exercise complete with virgin-on-the-altar (Guess who?) with a woman pulling a bloody red baby from her womb to throw into a nearby fire. (YES, that's right, this ending is so freaking lame that a FULL GROWN BABY was pulled from the womb of a girl who was supposed to be only a few weeks pregnant!) What's worse, the very last scene was a downright copy of the Blair Witch Project's last scene. For shaaaaaaaaaame, as I say to my kids.

Then it hit me! That was the sickest and most brilliant thing that Satan himself did with this movie-- the cheese whiz lamesauce ending did what it was supposed to do: it discredited both demonic possession and in particular possession stemming from Satanic Ritual Abuse. People, and in particular the mind-bogglingly wealthy creators of culture in our western society, celebrities and the media have unceasingly waged war on reality by attempting to paint what God has called good evil and what God has called evil good.

I have seen with my own eyes that Satanic Covens and Cults do indeed exist. I have uncovered pockets in our country's landscape where they hold great power, and pockets in our society's socio-political and cultural structure from where they rule and reign. I have seen with my own eyes what happens to victims of Satanic Ritual Abuse, and what SRA will do to people spiritually, as I have prayed both for and with self-proclaimed victims and perpetrators of SRA. To cheapen or diminish this important thing- this crucial knowledge- which so very few of us (shoutout to Vigilant Citizen)have tried to inform others about is to wage war against God and against man, for it is MAN who will suffer greatly from a lack of fear of evil.

It has often been said that Satanic Ritual Abuse is a myth and a lie and that no "educated" person can believe in it. And yet I have seen it, so I must believe. It has been said that Demonic Possession walks too fine a line and that with advances in science we see fewer and fewer cases of ACTUAL possession, if any at all. And yet I have seen it, and so I must believe.

I walked into "The Last Exorcism" like most Americans, expecting to walk into a movie that demonstrated that we can cheat God for only so long before the reality of heaven and hell descends upon us. Instead, I was spoonfed the message that the very core of God's Gospel, the battle between good and evil, is too cheesy, theatrical and contrived to actually be TRUE. Worse, that's its so confusing that it's become comical and that all I need do is to stop thinking and sit back and allow myself to be emotionally and intellectually manipulated because I might actually enjoy it.

And that's what I was left with-- a movie that had so much creative potential to be artistically brilliant that absolutely sucked, and a movie that had so much potential to speak to people on a profound spiritual level that absolutely failed. Worse yet-- it purposely destroyed its own capacity for greatness graphically in order to destroy you morally.

Don't believe the hype, America. The forces of good and the forces of evil are truly locked over your very heads at every moment of every day. You see them on the news and they don't even phase you because you aren't even paying attention. Watch The Last Exorcist and see if you don't come out with a troubled and disappointed spirit. Everything has the power to speak to you if you let it. Choose carefully which voices you heed.