I'll keep the first section relatively spoiler free...but there's some stuff I'd like to discuss with people who have seen the movie, so the later section will be marked for spoilers.

While I generally hate the "oh, this isn't a fake movie...this is an actual documentary...PSYCH!" type of films, this one was actually really good. Up until this point, very few movies had done this genre justice. Diary of the Dead probably did it the best, and Fourth Kind did something different which made the entire movie much better (they used "research footage" for half the movie, and had well known actors reenact certain scenes...it gave the "research footage" more validity)...but there were so many movies that used this style that were just atrocious. Blair Witch spent most of the movie just walking around the woods while nothing happened. Cloverfield was too shaky to see what was going on. But the worst was Paranormal Activity...90 minutes of a couple bickering with maybe 10 minutes of cool s**t that all happens at the very end of the film...

My big problem with most of these films is that a lot of them have this ridiculously long exposition. The first 30 minutes of the film, nothing happens. While the Last Exorcism does this too, they make up for it with all the social commentary on religion that the film. Also, the acting is great, all around. Specifically, Marcus (the pastor) and Nell (the possessed girl) do phenomenal jobs. Marcus keeps the audience entertained with his quips and insight on religion and the way he deals with the environment of the movie until s**t starts to go down. He keeps you watching even when there's nothing to watch. And Nell has amazing characterization work...specifically cause she plays multiple people. Her work when she's fully possessed is awesome...best of her characters.

I'll say this outright...it's not a great horror film...almost all the "cool s**t" that happens in the film, you see in the trailer (with a few exceptions...they did save the best scene of the entire movie from being put in the trailer, and it was totally badass). Where this movie really gets it's merit is from the commentary and the driving question of the movie: Is the girl really possessed...which is a question that is never actually answered in the movie. (I'll get to that later)

The only real flaw I had with the movie was the ending...It was just...there. It felt rushed and really left you asking "....that's it?" I guess technically they did sum up the movie, but there was a major flaw with how it ended:

************SPOILER SECTION****************

Okay, if you're reading this section, you've either seen the movie, or don't give a s**t if it's ruined for you. I'll do some explanations for people who haven't seen the movie, so that you understand what I'm talking about:

SYNOPSIS- Here's the Wikipedia article if you want more detail.

Marcus, a pastor who admittedly has his doubts about religion, is hired by Louis to exorcise his daughter, Nell, who has become increasingly violent. Marcus agrees, but only because he has grown to despise the practice of exorcisms, and is filming the documentary for the purpose of debunking them.

He meets with the family: Louis (the father), Nell (the possessed daughter), and Caleb (the rebellious son). Caleb initially has a problem with Marcus, until he realizes that Marcus is putting on an act for the benefit of the family. Caleb, fully aware of Marcus being a "fraud", let's Marcus continue his work; namely, performing a fake exorcism.

After the fake exorcism, Marcus assures the family that things will be fine, and leaves. Later that night, Nell shows up at Marcus's hotel in a near catatonic state. Marcus and his film crew rush her to the hospital, where she was evaluated physically as normal. Marcus asks for a psychiatric evaluation; however, only the parent can ask for one, and Louis refuses. Marcus tries to recruit the aid of a local pastor, Pastor Manley, who was also the family's pastor until recently. Manley says he'd like to help, and that he has a friend who is a psychiatrist, but unless Louis agrees, there is nothing he can do.

Marcus returns to the house the next day, and find Caleb has a huge gash on his mouth. Caleb hands Marcus a note, warning him about leaving Nell with their father. Marcus insists that Louis take Caleb to the hospital, so that he can be there "in case the demon returns".

With Caleb and Louis out of the house, Marcus and the film crew deal with Nell's increasingly strange behavior (including finding Nell's drawings of the crew, dead, with Marcus burning, the sound girl hacked into several pieces, and the camera man beheaded). During the night, they hear a message that was left on the answering machine from the hospital, informing the household that Nell is pregnant.

The crew bickers about taking Nell out of the household (as the sound girl assumes the father raped her), as Nell acts out even more. Louis, hearing the news of his daughter's pregnancy, says it's the work of the demon and demands Marcus to perform another exorcism, stating that if Marcus doesn't, he will kill his daughter. Eventually, after seeing Nell act out even more and after being threatened at gun point, Marcus agrees.

During the second exorcism, Marcus calls forth the demon, Abalam, and tries to cast him out. During their discourse, Abalam tries to instigate Marcus by asking him if he wanted a "blowing job." Marcus then realizes that Nell isn't possessed, but acting out due to her shame over being pregnant, as a demon would know what a blow job is, but a sheltered 16-year-old wouldn't.

Nell breaks down and shares the story of what really happened, saying she had consensual sex with a boy named Logan, who works at a diner in town. Louis finally accepts this, and accepts the help of Manley, to whom Marcus leaves the family in care of.

As Marcus and the film crew are leaving town, they see the diner that Logan works at, and stop in to talk to him. They find out that not only has he only talked to her once for only about a minute, but that he is gay and wouldn't sleep with Nell.

Concerned, the trio rush back to the house to find it deserted, with Nell's rooms in shambles with satanic drawings all over the room. They see a bonfire in the distance and sneak up on the scene: Pastor Manley leading his cult in a satanic ritual, while Louis is tied and gagged, and Nell is giving birth. Manley tosses the baby into the fire to summon a demon. Marcus approaches the fire to combat the demon, which is in the image of a picture Nell had drawn. The other two try to escape into the woods, but the sound girl is hacked into several pieces by cult members, and the camera man is beheaded, by Caleb, who is revealed to be a cult member.

----------------END SYNOPSIS-----------------------

The major flaw with the movie lies with the ending, which disregards the entire reason why films like this exist. In this "faux-documentary" style, the audience has an understanding of how they are able to view the film. In Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity, the tapes were found by police. In the Fourth Kind, the "real" footage were research materials. Cloverfield: the footage was leaked from the government. And in Diary of the Dead, the students uploaded their footage onto the internet.

At the end of the Last Exorcism, the cameraman, who is assumed the lone survivor at this point, runs into Caleb, who beheads him....So how are we, the audience, able to view this movie? The footage is with the "enemy". They wouldn't just broadcast this stuff to the world. And sure, you could say that maybe the footage was found by police if they discovered the bodies...but that would mean that Caleb is the most inept criminal ever. He knows they've been filming a documentary and that they captured the cult's exploits on tape...Why would he just leave the footage around, especially when it shows him killing the camera man? Considering that the audience is still trying to digest and figure out what is going on, the ending comes up very unexpectedly, leaving many questions seemingly unanswered (though, if you think through the film, you can answer most of the questions). Still, my only issue with the film is that the footage ends up with the cult, yet we're able to see it. It just takes you out of that state of disbelief in what is otherwise a great film.

Now is the big question, what the whole movie is based around and what is a great film debate question: Was Nell really possessed? There is plenty of evidence for each side, and if you've seen the movie, please give me your interpretation. I'm still struggling with my decision, but I'll lay out some "possessed" and "not possessed" scenarios:

She is possessed- For most of the film, this is what we're lead to believe: that Nell is possessed by a demon named Abalam. She shows some supernatural or psuedo-natural abilities. Somehow, despite being homeschooled, she starts speaking in Latin, which her father could not have taught her since he doesn't speak it. She is seen contorting herself in unusual ways and injuring herself with no signs of discomfort. These can possibly explained (which I will in the next section), however, the next example can't: She makes prophetic drawings. One of which is of a dead cat, who she later kills. Obviously, she could have been planning this, so that's explainable...but there's no explanation for her drawing of the dead film crew. It's what gives her ability credibility, considering the crew dies in those specific ways (we're assuming Marcus was burned to death) and thus, gives her possession credibility. So, if she's possessed, that means the way she was impregnated needs to be explained. My theory is that Abalam was posing as Logan, who was probably her crush though, considering how little she talked to him, she didn't know he was gay. The demon used this form to manipulate Nell into giving herself to him (which may have even been in a dream or fantasy) so that he could impregnate her (there is another possibility, but I'll discuss that below).

She's not possessed- There are actually a lot of instances that explain how she's not possessed, including her "powers". Marcus claims she is speaking Latin at one point...however, it's never really proven that Marcus actually knows Latin. There is a scene where he is sitting with Louis, reading a demon book that is in Latin, and thus, we learn that Louis does not know Latin...but Marcus is a con man of sorts. He puts on shows for people. Pretending to speak Latin is something his character would do. He could say anything about what the book is saying, and Louis would believe it because he trusts that Marcus is telling him the truth. It also explains why he accurately describes the demon as Abalam, despite the fact that he is performing a fake exorcism, and most likely didn't care which demon he picked. Notice all of his descriptions of Abalam are vague, and when Louis recites one of the descriptions, Marcus has trouble recalling it. And even if Nell is speaking Latin, that doesn't make her supernatural. She didn't learn it from her father, sure...but she could have learned it from someone else, like Pastor Manley for example. The bending and injuring herself thing can actually be explained very easily. Her contortions could be double jointedness, or just unconscious relaxation of the body. Her injuries could not affect her to do adrenaline, which explains why she feels the pain after she's "come out of her possessed state". The prophetic drawing of the crew's demise is hard to debunk, considering that guessing how all three people would specifically die on one painting is a little far-fetched. While she could just have latent prophetic abilities, she isn't shown displaying this ability anywhere else in the film (not credibly anyway...the picture of the cat could be something she planned and her pictures of the real events of certain bible stories, we have to take her word on). Despite this, if she were possessed, Abalam would know things that Nell couldn't know. Not only does this show itself in the "blowing job" section, it's also evident through all the things it "knows" about Marcus. While it knows Marcus has a problem with his faith, this could either have been something Nell saw in the way he acted, or Caleb could have told her. He knows Marcus is a fraud, and considering he's a member of the cult, he would believe she is possessed and wouldn't want her to be exorcised. A big part of exorcism is belief and faith (if one believes they have been released from the demon, they have been...and if one believes a demon is possessing them, it actually makes the demon "stronger"), so if Caleb let's on that he's a fraud to Nell, it's almost guaranteed the exorcism will fail. Anything else Abalam says about Marcus, including saying that the demon is Abalam, are things Nell could have overheard in the house. If she's not possessed, she most likely has multiple personality disorder due to stress. This is seen after the second exorcism when she refers to herself in the third person. The pregnancy can also be explained: she was most likely raped by a member of the cult (maybe even her brother or Manley). The delusion of Logan could be her trying to escape the horrible reality of having been raped. Her "acting out of shame to being pregnant" is much more believably explained as her "shame of being raped" (as some women blame themselves for being weak), and also explains the personality split and why one is aggressively violent and the other is passive and friendly. Even the pregnancy is explainable as some women show very few signs of being pregnant.

Sorry for the long review, but this movie makes me want to discuss the film...which I think makes it an awesome movie to watch (like how debating the end of Code Geass makes it worth watching multiple times). If anyone wants to discuss this movie, I'm down.