Movie Review: The Last Exorcism

Ok, I have a bias against horror movies. Not because I go to church frequently, or because I'm a chicken when it comes to those movies. It's because they dissappoint frequently, and they don't truly deliver on what is expected. The Last Exorcism I have to say was a dissappointment. Let me break it down to you why this movie let me down and my expectations of this movie down. #1) It's inspired by other movies. By "inspired" i mean copy. The main "copy" i see in this movie is the "faux documentary" first person camera. Ok, i really actually like the concept of having a first person camera to depict the events of this movie. However, the camera movements were too much and too annoying, with the jiggling, bad focus, and shaking. It seemed like it was trying to mimic The Blair Witch Project (but that was actually good), so instead of depicting the events clearly and scarily, it just got in the way. #2) It's PG-13. When I want to watch a horror movie I expect it to either be violent or filled with cuss words. The reason why expect horror movies to be this way it's because it evokes so much emotion and from the emotion comes the genuine fear. When it's PG-13 it feels and looks very watered down from the blood and the scares. Even though there were some little scares this movie delivered (about 3 or 4) the blood and violence it tried to evoke, plus the emotion, was incredibly watered down, which led to a lack of genuine scares. #3) It's confused. Ok, I think this is the big one. There are 3 types of horror movies in my opinion; the slasher gore horror(eg. SAW, Scream etc.), the supernatural ghost thriller/nail-biters(Paranormal Activity(which I liked), Blair Witch etc) and Psychological Thrillers(Gothika, SAW(it counts as 2)). The Last Excorcism is confused as to what it wants to be. It starts off as a Psychological Thriller, plays off as a Supernatural nail biter(the only part i actually enjoyed), and ends as a slasher(or at least tries to). And because it tries to end off as a slasher, being a PG-13 movie it didn't really help. It also plays a little bit like a character drama where the main character , Cotton Marcus, has faith issues and we see how he is out to prove that the possession of humans from demons is in fact a hoax, and pretty much to show how his entire life has been a hoax. I get the drama I actually like it, but we never are exactly told as to what happened to Cotton Marcus, we're just left hanging with a quick shaky distracting image of what appears of him regaining his faith and actually being the real deal, but the camera got in the way again and we never know what exactly happened to him but we do know what happens to the crew, of course. This movie, I have to say was one of the biggest dissappointments of the year, not the worst movie
'cause it did have qualities to enjoy, but it just wasn't worth it.