The Last Exorcism is a little difficult to review. It's a great concept with great performances, but it doesn't have very many scary moments. The film is about an evangelical Reverend by the name of Cotton Marcus who used to make his living by performing exorcisms. Cotton doesn't believe in demons, but he does believe he provides a service by "healing" people who believe they have a demon. After he reads about the death of a child via a botched exorcism, Cotton decides to expose the fact that exorcisms are fake, and that demons truly do not exist. It’s in the first half of TLE that the movie really shines. Patrick Fabian, who plays Cotton, deserves a lot of credit for making his character an extremely likeable guy. I don't believe the first half of the movie would have worked as well as it did with a different actor in the role. Ashley Bell, who plays Nell, also shines as the young girl who may, or may not be possessed. There is also a lot of humor to be found in the first half an hour or so, but when it comes time to scare the audience, The Last Exorcism is hit or miss. The film does well in creating tension during certain scenes, but it never feels as though the filmmakers capitalize on that tension. The Last Exorcism is far from a bad movie, but it certainly could have been a lot better if more time was spent on the last half of the script. The ending leaves it open for audience interpretation, and I for one really enjoyed the last 5 minutes or so. The film did garner enough attention at the box office to get a sequel (in which Ashley Bell will return. No word on Fabian), so we'll see what mistakes are corrected when it hits theaters.
The United States has been remaking Japanese horror films for years, so it was a little surprising to see Japan take one from us for a change. Right around the time that Paramount released Paranormal Activity 2, Japan was releasing their own version of a sequel, titled Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Night. This movie follows a foreign exchange student who returns home (bringing the demon with her, of course) and experiencing her own bumps in the night. The Japanese really know how to create a creepy environment on film, but this is another movie that fails to recreate the original and falls flat on its face. There are a handful of interesting scenes, but for the most part the filmmakers just recreated a lot scenes and recycled a lot of the sound cues from the original and then tacked on an extra few minutes to the ending. Nothing new or exciting here, which is disappointing considering Paranormal Activity 2 completely changed the way in which you watch the original. I do have high hopes for Paranormal Activity: Tokyo Drift though.
Troll Hunter, as ridiculous as it sounds when you first hear about it, is actually a very charming and well made movie dealing with Norwegian folklore. The film essentially follows a group of students who are researching bear attacks when they discover a man who they believe to be a poacher. They follow him around in an attempt to expose him when they find out that he is in fact hunting something that they never could have imagined. The film has several different designs for its monsters and feels harmless for the first half, but about midway through the movie it takes a shift in tone and becomes very engaging. Again, the premise sounds so cheesy, but it is very well made and very entertaining. It took awhile, but it finally hit blu ray in the US and just appeared on Netflix Instant, so I highly recommend checking it out if you can.
Megan is Missing is a film that I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring up when I first watched it, but it is a film that needs discussion. Thus far for me, the "found footage" genre has mostly been about the unexplained. Ghosts, demons, monsters, why George Romero can't make a good movie anymore, etc. Part of the reason I find them so interesting is because they are treated as if they really happened. The use of unknown actors, the film quality, the absense of music are all apart of what makes the genre so successful. Megan is Missing deals with a real subject, is based on actual police cases, and as a result it feels a little too real. The movie is made up of video phone chats, webcams, security footage and (extremely cheesy) newscast reenactments. The film itself deals with online predators and child abduction. Megan is Missing has its share of questionable acting and cheesy scenes that could have been left out, but it’s the final 45 minutes of the film that really make you look past all of that. The plot is as follows: Amy and Megan are best friends and polar opposites. Megan has a bad relationship with her mother, no father, and a stepdad who is in prison for reasons that better explain why Megan is the way she is. She’s a party girl, drinks, does drugs and is promiscuous. Amy, on the other hand, lives in a loving home with two parents and for the most part is a normal 13 year old. Due to her low self esteem however she idolizes Megan and her lifestyle, which is ironic because Megan herself idolizes Amy because of her innocence. The first 30 minutes is essentially setting up the friendship and exploring Megan’s horrible past. Getting through the first part of the film is dependant on whether or not you want to see a group of 14 year old girls making bad decisions (when a few of them should have been taking acting classes instead). Eventually, Megan begins to chat online with "Josh," who Megan falls for easily due to her constant need for male attention. They agree to meet up one night, and it turns out that it is the last night Megan is heard from again. Amy suspects that "Josh" might know something, and goes to the police. As a result of putting "Josh" in the public eye, Amy is taken and never heard from again. The last 22 minutes of the movie are the most difficult to get through. In this last section of the movie, we’re shown (in an all too graphic display sometimes) what Amy goes through (which I will opt not to print here). Once the film was over I was definitely shaken and upset. It was easy for me to dismiss the film because I was pissed off, but after thinking about it a lot I truly believe the overall message of the film is important. The violence that occurs doesn't hold back, but it doesn't need to. This type of subject matter should not be sugar coated.
I spent a lot of time thinking about this movie after it was over, and I did a lot of research about why it was made. I even discovered that Richard Klass endorsed the film (my generation may remember his daughter Polly Klass in the 90s) and that some of the profits from the film go to KlassKids charity. I spoke to a few friends about the film, and it brought up parallels in the recent Jaycee Dugard story. I can give credit to the film for sparking a discussion that should be had amongst good parents, and while I recommend the film to people who can stomach it, be warned that it can be very uncomfortable. As I mentioned earlier, the last 22 minutes are brutal, and the ending brought me as close to being truly depressed as a movie ever has.
Now that we’re all officially bummed out, let’s once again look to the future of cinema verite. Platinum Dunes are the remake kings in the modern world of cinema. They’ve done A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its sequel, as well as The Amityville Horror starring Ryan Reynold’s beard. The biggest success in their vault of "unoriginality" was Friday the 13th. Ever since then they have been looking at a new spin for the sequel. The one getting the most attention lately is a "found footage" approach. With every Friday the 13th movie essentially being the same thing over and over again (except Jason X because that was awesome) we’re probably looking at Footage Found on the 13th movie, which means same old same old…now with a cheaper camera. Another sequel in the works is The Amityville Tapes, which will also feature a new found footage format. A trailer for Tape 407 was released last week and appears to be about a group of people who survive a plane crash. They discover that they're stranded on an island of some sort, and soon learn of some form of government experimentation taking place. To be honest, it looked like a found footage version of Jurassic Park. If you seek out the trailer, tell me those monsters don't look like velociraptors. Anyway, look for Tape 407 to hit at the end of the month.
ABC is even getting in on this with Oren Peli’s The River, which plays out with a Bear Grylls type character "traveling down the Amazon River in the middle of South America and disappeared without a trace" (wiki). His family then sets out to find him and discovers something more supernatural at work.
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