It’s funny to see such similar movies released in such a short amount of time, with Valhalla Rising, an art film disguised as a violent action movie, and Centurion, a violent action movie disguised as an art film. Whereas Valhalla Rising featured very little action or blood, it ended up focusing more on the mythology and symbolism of ancient Viking culture. Centurion, on the other hand, features some of the most graphic violence I’ve seen all year, but unfortunately has almost nothing original or insightful to say or present.

In a mixture, both in story and style, of The Warriors, Lord of the Rings and 300, Centurion follows a small group of Roman warriors who are caught over enemy lines after their army was decimated by their enemies, the Picts. Making their way across dozens of mountain ranges, frozen valleys, and other geographically stunning locations, they attempt to avoid the treacheries of the wilderness, each other, and a small band of Picts who are tracking them, led by the traitorous Etain, a mute warrior woman who’s responsible for the obliteration of their fellow soldiers. This all sounds exciting and interesting, but after spending an hour and a half in this world, most of which is spent from a helicopter, watching as these guys walk across snow-covered mountain ranges, it all feels pretty boring and pointless.

Aside from its ancient setting, the story here could be applied to any modern war movie, with the basic premise squeezed for every last generic scene possible. In one particularly laughable moment, we even get to see our heroes gathered around a campfire in a bland repeat of every “You know what I’m going to do when I get home?” scene that’s appeared in almost every war movie I’ve ever sat through, from Saving Private Ryan to Tropic Thunder. That, along with some pretty forgettable characters and a pretty confusing set up (for the first ten-fifteen minutes, I wasn’t sure who was a Roman and who was a Pict), there’s not much here substance-wise to grab onto.

However, where the story is lacking, the action here is pretty spectacular. It seems like this movie was made for the sole purpose of having modern violence and language, but combining it with a style of warfare that allows the characters to get in close with each other. Instead of bullets flying through the air, we have swords cutting through torsos, and axes tearing into heads, allowing for the filmmakers to get a lot bloodier and grittier with the gore. Unfortunately, these scenes are a little too few and far apart from each other, usually separated by a few scenes of walking or running, that when they arrive, it’s hard to be interested because you don’t care about what’s happening or who it’s happening to.

Without a compelling story, even the bloodiest battles and goriest deaths are meaningless. Sure, it’s cool to look at, and, don’t get me wrong, whenever there’s blood, there’s lots of it, but there’s nothing here worth revisiting. The reason movies like Saving Private Ryan and Apocalypse Now will always be thought of favorably as great examples of the genre is due to their ability to pull audiences in with relatable characters and complex themes. Centurion feels more like a warmed over WWII movie, in a different time, with more violence. Perhaps there was no real attempt here to be anything but a simple gladiator story with some brutal violence, but that’s no excuse to give your audience the blandest story to wrap that brutal violence in. There’s nothing here that’s worth hating, really, but, unless you’re really hard up for some blood, there’s not much to recommend either.

6 out of 10.

Well folks, we made it just in time.  It’s our August Fivegoo and we did it in a big BIG way.  We shot it on the set of our newest short film Blood Signal. Not only that, we shot it in stunning HD. Actually, we shot it on 2 HD cameras.  AND we had a boom mic this time!  God we rule.  Dave got the luck of the draw and hosted ANOTHER topic.  Don’t let jat59072′s typo and mis-titling of the video fool you, this fivegoo is FAVORITE VIGILANTE MOVIES (NOT Favorite Vigilantes).  Check it out and show all your friends so we can make up for the ridiculously high budget of this one.

Read the Planet of the Apes Series Review Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.

Movie #5: Battle For the Planet of the Apes (1973)

What a sad, sad way for a pretty good franchise to end. There’s not much to say about Battle For the Planet of the Apes because not much happens here. After his rousing speech at the end of the previous installment, Caesar has created a village where humans and apes live together somewhat peacefully. However, tensions are beginning to rise as the gorilla’s leader, Aldo, is gathering support to overthrow Caesar, and the humans are getting sick of being “compassionately dominated”. All of this should’ve lead to some nice conclusions, seeing as the series has been leading towards seeing the moment the timeline meets up with the one we see at the beginning of the first Planet of the Apes. Unfortunately, any sense of closure or finality is compressed into a minute long summary of the last two movies that plays before the opening credits, and a minute long conclusion at the end, leaving the entire middle of Battle to consist of a recap of the series and a rock war.

As it has with most of the series, story and character continuity barely match up with the previous installments. Somehow, in the twelve years since the apes revolted in Conquest, every simian has learned to speak and walk like a human, civilization has been wiped out by a ten-megaton nuclear bomb, and society has reverted to grouping in small villages in the woods. Aside from this impossibly fast rise of the apes, the first half hour of the movie is dedicated to Caesar going into the ruins of the city to find the government archives so he can hear his parent’s retelling of the future. Not only is this trip slow and familiar, but also unnecessary, as Caesar was quoting these recordings in his dramatic speech at the end of Conquest! It seems like none of the writers in this series watch any of the movies that come before their installment. There’s no excuse to have a character be aware of and use direct quotes from his parent’s recordings, and then have him be completely unaware that there were ever recordings to begin with. It’s just plain lazy.

Looking past this infuriating lack of continuity, there’s really nothing here worth liking. The series would’ve been just as good if it had ended an installment earlier, with not one new or interesting addition included here. There is a callback to the mutated humans that live in the rubble of the old city from Beneath the Planet of the Apes, as we see their ancestors fight as a means to avenge their fallen species, but in the end, they’re right where we see them 1500 years in the future. Even the titular battle is nothing special, consisting only of a group of monkeys throwing rocks and grenades at the humans and their school busses for a few minutes.

It’s all very plainly presented and doesn’t take the series in any surprising directions, leaving everything exactly as it was when the movie started. Hell, even the makeup, which was one of the highlights of the first film, has been cut back so much throughout the series, here, the apes all appear to just be wearing masks with mouths that don’t move when they talk.

The only redeeming and somewhat concluding quality Battle serves the series lies in the human/ape relationship, which, here, is different than every version of it we’ve seen before. Having grown sick of the way they’re being treated, at the movies end the humans confront their captors and demand they all be treated as equals. As they stand on equal ground for the first time, we fade to a scene from the future where ape and human children are being educated about the turning point in their ancestor’s destinies. Seeing the interspecies mixing of these children in such a distant future could potentially give a fan of the series hope that in going back in time to warn the humans of their doom, Zira and Cornelius somehow stopped their future from coming true. It’s an interesting concept, and an unusually optimistic note for an Apes movie to end on, to show that it is possible to change the future, but it also opens up a variety of paradoxes and conflicts in the time travel use throughout the series, which pretty much negates any progress or message made here.

Every problem that has arisen throughout all four previous installments of the Planet of the Apes series comes together here: silly costumes and makeup, lack of franchise plot cohesion, repetition of past events, boring explanations of story and thematic points, etc. It’s like the producers went back to find all the things to avoid and to strive for from the previous movies, but then mixed the lists up when giving them to the writers, leaving us with all the wrong things. It’s a bad movie, a bad sequel, and a bad conclusion to a series that could’ve left a greater legacy, and definitely deserved better.

3 out of 10.

Read the Planet of the Apes Series Review Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.

Movie #4: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

Welcome to the distant future: 1991. In the twenty movie years since Escape From the Planet of the Apes, not only have all of the cats and dogs on Earth died from a mysterious plague, but humans have taken apes, who have suddenly gone through hundreds of years of evolution and look like their future relatives, as slaves when they realize their learning potential. With the sudden reappearance of Milo (now known as Caesar), who had been supposedly killed along with his parents, Zira and Cornelius, for the preservation of the human race, the stage is set for an ape revolution with Caesar as the head of the army.

Now, if any of this sounds familiar, it’s due to the fact that most of the events portrayed in Conquest come directly from Cornelius’ description of the downfall of the human race in Escape. The biggest problem with Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is that the humans of 1991 here have become so unbearably stupid that they completely ignore the story of their own downfall, and have gone out of their way to guarantee their own doom. If an ape-man from the future tells you in great detail how your species will die, wouldn’t you not do exactly what he says you are going to? This lack of common sense could just be another lesson from the writers about the human condition, how we choose to ignore all warnings when our convenience is at stake. However, it comes off as more of a continuity error, as none of the characters ever interfere with the system or comment on how strongly it resembles the future Cornelius described, leaving the audience to believe it’s just another mistake, similar to the many that can be found in the previous installment.

Aside from this monumental character error, the explanations for ape slavery and seeing the unfolding of the simian revolution give the series some of its most dramatic and cinematic moments. Roddy McDowell, playing the son of his now-dead Cornelius, is given some really meaty dialogue here, including a pretty incredible monologue near the end of the movie as he addresses his legions of ape followers. This is the kind of stuff that’s normally reserved for Shakespearian tragedies, but the writing here is as strong as any of those, with the ideas of human and animal rights overlapping, and whether destiny is inevitable or must be forced, along with some other heavy topics.

Unfortunately most of the interesting material here is saved for the last half-hour, with the rest of the movie used up introducing us to the inner-workings of the ape slave trade and following Caesar as he traverses the training facilities used to domesticate his brothers, showing us his growing hatred of the human race. There’s nothing really wrong with any of this, but it gets old fast, turning into a tour of a futuristic world, instead of a movie. The action and conflict in the end mostly makes up for this, and makes me very interested to see how it all ends in the next, and final, installment.  But until then, I’ll leave you with the greatest scene in the series since the ending of the first film, Caesar’s philosophical discussion with his only human supporter, and his final rousing address to his army of ape revolutionaries.

7 out of 10.

There is only one reason I was interested in seeing Going the Distance, the Drew Barrymore/Justin Long romantic comedy about long distance relationships: Charlie Day. Often the funniest part of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, I knew I could depend on Day to make what looked like a fairly generic movie just a little more watchable, and he didn’t disappoint. In fact, he and Jason Sudeikis, as Justin Long’s best friends, are perhaps the funniest people in this movie, but surprisingly, they aren’t the only good things here.

I say “surprisingly” due mostly because of the commercials and trailers for Going the Distance, which make this look like the same annoying fluff that comes out every other month starring Katherine Heigl, Kate Hudson, or, yes, Drew Barrymore as the workaholic modern women trying to find Mr. Right. This appearance was quickly dashed with another surprise: an “R” rating. With the freedom that comes with such a rating, it seems the cast, writer, and director were able to move past some of the flaws this genre is normally known for, and have its characters speak as frankly and crudely as actual people do, allowing them to not only be more relatable, but also really funny at points. Now, vulgarity and swearing shouldn’t be a lone source of humor, but in a situation like this, they help take the attention away from the more annoying and clichéd parts of the movie, of which there are quite a few.

As the credits rolled and I walked out of the theater, I realized that I hadn’t seen, or even heard of, another “long distance” romantic comedy before, but after having viewed Going the Distance, it’s apparent why: after your two main characters make the decision to continue the relationship from different coasts, the movie becomes a montage of these people repeating over and over the same conflicts and problems they’re having for the entire length of the movie. I understand that it’s hard to communicate with someone that’s three time zones away from you, but having ten different scenes where the time difference makes it hard to reach them doesn’t make me sympathetic, it makes me bored. Just like presenting the same impossible conflict (she wants to be a newspaper writer, but the only job’s in California; his life is in New York and he can’t find a job anywhere else) for a majority of the movie, when it’s so easily solvable in the last few minutes, makes it really frustrating for the audience, and doesn’t help us understand why they couldn’t figure it out any earlier, only making us wish we hadn’t wasted our time.

In the end, it makes watching movies like Going the Distance so much easier to enjoy when you realize that no matter how many dirty jokes and attempts at meaningfulness there are, this is, ultimately, a piece of fluff. There is no greater purpose here than to give couples an alternative to Piranha 3D and Takers, if the girl in the relationship isn’t into blood and gangsters. While there are a few memorable supporting performances, especially those from Day, Sudeikis, and Jim Gaffigan, there are just as many that are repetitive and ill fitting for the somewhat realistic world set up here, especially those from Christina Applegate and Rob Riggle. It’s not a bad movie, and at times it can be very funny, but there’s nothing here too special or unique here either, which is Going the Distance’s biggest downfall.

5 out of 10.

Read the Planet of the Apes Series Review Part 1 here, and Part 2 here.

Movie #3: Escape From the Planet of the Apes (1971)

So, how do you continue a franchise that has the world explode in its second installment? It’s easy, as we see in Escape From the Planet of the Apes: simply inexplicably send your characters back in time using pseudo-science and guessing as an explanation. Yes, as we discover in the pre-cedits sequence of Escape, apparently, while Charlton Heston’s Taylor was destroying the Earth, Zira, Cornelius, and new ape super-scientist, Dr. Milo hopped on a space ship and were somehow sent back to two years after Taylor’s original launch from Earth: 1973.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: what an incredibly cool and creative way to continue the series, basically paralleling the previous two movies by this time, having the apes get stuck on a planet full of humans. But this soon gets old, as almost the entire first hour turns into one long interrogation scene that consists mainly of exposition that is delivered as if it were some sort of senate sub-committee hearing…oh, wait…it is a senate sub-committee hearing. As you can imagine, this is as entertaining as watching C-SPAN for an hour and a half, but with a funkier soundtrack and wardrobe.

And as interesting as it is to hear Cornelius tell the story of how the human race fell to their pet orangutans, what would be even cooler was if it matched up with anything that had previously been established in the two earlier movies. Cornelius talks about Aldo, the first ape to ever talk, and the celebration his people have every year to commemorate this momentous event, but in the previous Apes movies, we’re told that all apes had no knowledge of their pasts, believing they were divinely created as they were by god. Along with the fact that the spaceship they flew back in time on was last seen at the bottom of a lake, there’s too many distracting plot holes and continuity errors to be interested in any of the history lesson that comes out of Cornelius’ mouth.

Aside from this, however, there are some pretty cool ideas about the possibility of time travel and how it could apply to the situation.  Escape also features one of the most well-spoken and considerate villains in the series with Dr. Otto Hasslein, as played by Eric Braeden, who is concerned only about the continuation of the human race, fearing that the apes story and appearance at this time are more than coincidence, believing that they will bring upon the fall of man. When he is reassured that they mean no harm, he monologues with great purpose, dropping gems of dialogue like, “We think we’ve got all the time in the world! How much time has the world got? Somebody has to begin to care!” After a while, he kind of starts to make sense, making the audience wonder why these side characters from the first two movies should suddenly get a free pass, after the way they treated the humans in their time.

It’s kind of boring, makes little sense, and, aside from a few cool moments, is totally unnecessary, especially considering that the franchise literally self-imploded at the end of the last installment, but Escape From the Planet of the Apes isn’t entirely bad, and kind of leaves off with an interesting twist that will surely pay off in the next installment. At this point, it’s obvious they’re just making it up as they go along, and so far, it’s the worst of the series, in my opinion, but, hey…the director shares a name with my dad, so I’ve got to give it some credit.

5 out of 10.

See Part 1 of the Planet of the Apes series review here.

Movie #2: Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

It’s funny when you see a sequel to a movie, and you know it’s not as good as the original, but it does some things a little better even though it suffers from the same problems. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is kind of like that. It’s not as good as Planet of the Apes for a number of reasons: the makeup budget was inexplicably slashed, leaving most of the ape actors in awful masks, it’s message is even less subtle than its predecessor, and the story is basically a carbon copy of the original.

Here we have astronaut John Brent arriving on the planet as part of a rescue mission for Charlton Heston’s George Taylor, who, as we learn in flashbacks of his love interest, Nova, has disappeared into the side of a holographic mountain (yeah). We get through his discovery of the ape city, his introduction to Zira and a mysteriously recast Cornelius, and his mission to find the mystery that lies, ahem, BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. But that’s just the first half hour.

Now, like I said, this movie is not as good as the original, but hot damn is it fun! You want to know what’s beneath the planet of the apes, as is foreshadowed in Planet of the Apes? SPOILER ALERT: it’s a futuristic city of sentient, telepathic mutant humans who worship the last remaining atomic warhead. Because if stretching your disbelief with a planet of highly evolved monkeys in the first one wasn’t enough, this probably won’t break it.

Of course, being from 1970, there are heavy Viet Nam war metaphors, especially in the successful attempts by the militarized gorillas to convince everyone else that the human population and their ideas are dangerous and must be stopped. And the “man will destroy himself” theme is alive and well with the prominence of the holy warhead, which, in one of the more bleak movie endings I’ve seen, is detonated in the final moments of the film, setting off a chain reaction that decimates the planet (yet, oddly enough, leaving enough room for three more sequels).

Again, this movie is ridiculous, and, for the most part, doesn’t make much sense and kind of intentionally destroys the franchise, but it’s twice as fun as Planet of the Apes, which wasn’t necessarily a downer to begin with. It’s admirable to attempt to make a direct sequel to the first movie, as it doesn’t necessarily lend itself to one, but if anything, Beneath does its best to follow the already familiar characters while showing us Taylor’s foreshadowed destiny, which were promised in the last lines of the first movie. But there’s so much great stuff here too, besides just fulfilling the requirements to be a good sequel.  I don’t know why, but I love seeing familiar things that have been aged to look like they’ve been abandoned for a long time, like Peter’s old hideout in Hook, and with some really cool matte paintings and set design, we get to see a lot of buried New York sets are really just neat to look at. And the ungodly amount of cheese involved in the execution of the underground mutants and their telepathy would be enough to feed a small country full of starving children. It’s kind of a mind-blowing experience, the kind that makes you wonder how it ever got made, but makes you grateful for it at the same time.

Deep in my heart, I know it’s not good, but something about Beneath the Planet of the Apes just makes me happy, and for my money, that’s good enough.

7 out of 10.

Every once in a while, a movie studio will decide that a movie is so good, and made them so much money, the public deserves something for embracing this phenomenally successful piece of entertainment. So, they will reassemble the cast and crew of said movie, and assign them to make something similar to the original product, but different enough that people will want to pay to see it. This is a sequel.

But, of course, you all know what a sequel is, what with the theaters filled with them come summertime. This summer alone we’ve had over a dozen sequels released, some madly anticipated (The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Iron Man 2), and some not so much (Cats and Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Nanny McPhee Returns). It seems like a fairly recent phenomenon, the release of all these sequels and prequels to such absurd franchises, but it’s been happening for a pretty long time. In fact, it was my disbelief that after the original Planet of the Apes in 1968, four (yes, four) sequels were produced in the following five years that’s sparked this sudden interest for me in sequels.

Planet of the Apes? Really? I was aware that the original was held in very high regard, and if Cats and Dogs gets a sequel, it shouldn’t be that absurd, but four sequels? I never realized that people were clamoring for Planet of the Apes movies so much in the 70s that Fox had no choice but to make a franchise out of this seemingly simple idea, but, hey, here we are. So, having been meaning to see the original Planet of the Apes anyway, I decided to take this opportunity to see where these five movies stack up against any of the other great franchises in movie history, how they all match up against each other, and if the makers of these movies eventually found enough material in the premise of a planet inhabited with apes to fill ten hours of screen time. And so, I present to you, The Planet of the Apes Series.

Movie #1: Planet of the Apes (1968)

There are some movies you put off seeing for years, having heard the best scenes from them quoted and parodied a dozen times from your friends and in other movies. Planet of the Apes has become one of these movies, known primarily for its revolutionary makeup, a ridiculously over-the-top performance by Charlton Heston, and its incredible twist, which, I’ll admit, still works. But there’s something about Planet of the Apes that just feels…off.  With a movie like this, you need to convince your audience that what they’re watching amounts to more than its basic premise: a single, intelligent man is trapped on a planet full of monkey-people. And it’s in this attempt to stretch the idea beyond its ridiculous nature where it seems to falter, becoming fairly heavy handed, and somehow not taking itself seriously enough.

Now, by 1968, evolution was not a new concept, having been around since the mid-19^th century, but even this far after its introduction to the world, there were still people arguing over the possibility of such a bizarre idea. Planet of the Apes works as an ironic debate between the parties who are both for and against the idea, with the apes, evidence of evolution, denying it in favor of their god, The Great Lawgiver, and the belief that apes had always been the primary species, and Heston’s astronaut, George Taylor, a member of the inferior human race, as its proponent. It’s an interesting argument, mostly because of those doing the arguing, but little smacks of irony upside the head, like exclamations of how ridiculous “Ape evolving from man” is, the laughter caused by the idea of human domestication and the fact that an hour in the movie turns into a courtroom debate about the possibility of evolution, well, it just makes you wish for a little more subtlety in your movie about talking apes with humans as pets. Also, little touches like “You know what they say: human see, human do”, and a courtroom reenactment of “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” from an ape tribunal get a little too cutesy, when I felt a little gravity would’ve better served the big picture.

Aside from the heavy-handed messages and silly puns, however, there is a lot here to like. While very dramatic, actors like Heston, (as well as Roddy McDowell, and Kim Hunter as Heston’s ape friends Zira and Cornelius) give the movie a legitimacy that I think few other stars of the time could’ve provided, and there’s some pretty great set design and action set pieces. As highly regarded as the makeup is, it’s still surprising to see how well it holds up, and how impossible it is to find any flaws when looking at any of the apes facial features. And while it is a little much at times, Rod Serling (I’ll watch anything he writes) and Michael Wilson do a lot to make this more than an extended episode of the Twilight Zone, of which its ending seems pulled right out of.

The good here outweighs the bad, and I can understand why so many people have embraced Planet of the Apes, raising it above its somewhat cheesy science-fiction classification. It holds up well, and considering the endless amounts of computer graphics and modern filmmaking we’re used to seeing these days, it’s nice to know that a movie like Planet of the Apes still has a place in this world.

7 out of 10.

See Part 2: Beneath the Planet of the Apes here.

This is a column I’ve wanted to make for a long time.  I didn’t necessarily know I wanted to make it a column, but one of the best things about talking about movies is listening to or overhearing other people’s movie opinions.  It happens all the time – at work, in the theater before and after a movie, on the subway, at dinner, wherever.  And being the judgmental jerk I am, I take note of these opinions.  Not to think I’m holier-than-thou, but because these opinions are usually hilarious and/or telling of the common movie-goers opinion.  So, allow me to share a conversation I overheard at work recently…

Worker 1:  “… that’s the best 3D I’ve ever seen in a movie.”
Worker 2:  “Ah, I didn’t see it yet.”
Me: “What was?”
Worker 1: “Step-Up.”

There you have it folks.  Step-Up 3D has the greatest and most effective 3D in the history of all movies.  Skip Piranha, skip Avatar next week when it’s re-released (on principle), skip Jackass in two months, skip every 3D movie that precedes Step-Up, for they are truly inferior.  They might be good movies and have some decent 3D, but when you compare them up against dance moves comin’ atcha, it’s no contest.

In the commercials and trailers for The Last Exorcism, we are informed “Reverend Cotton Marcus has performed over 47 exorcisms. This will be his last.” We assume this is because during this exorcism, in which the daughter of an ultra-conservative and spiritual farmer seems to have been possessed by a demon, there will be many spooky moments, possibly some blood, and, eventually, the tragic death of Cotton Marcus at the hand of the demon. The expectation of this kind of clichéd story, along with the use of the “found footage/handheld” method of storytelling will probably keep a lot of people from seeing The Last Exorcism. But I’ve got to tell you, as someone with just these expectations, I was completely surprised and impressed by what this movie accomplishes with a fairly played out sub-genre.

In a clever, misleading play on words on the part of the marketing department, this is indeed Cotton Marcus’ last exorcism. But the reason for that has nothing to do with any violent death or tragic fate, and is actually proclaimed as the last exorcism by Marcus himself. As we learn in the first half-hour of the movie, Cotton Marcus has been groomed to be a preacher since childhood, often being used as a gimmick by his church to raise money because, as he says, “The church don’t run on happiness.” Having this responsibility at such a young age ended up turning Cotton, now in his early-forties, into a cynical man who doesn’t know what he believes anymore, except that there probably is no god. Having performed almost fifty exorcisms, Cotton has come to find the tricks necessary to fool anyone crazy enough to believe that they’re possessed into thinking that they’re cured, and is using this documentary as a way to defraud the Catholic church, whose exorcism methods are becoming more popular and dangerous.

Now, due to this long-growing loss of faith, Cotton has become, well, kind of an asshole, preaching to the very people he laughs at, and doing it with such a conviction and condescending nature, that it’s kind of a miracle that Patrick Fabian’s performance makes him so likeable. Fabian talks to the camera with a knowing smile, as if everything’s a big joke, and his energy comes out to the audience, who, at my screening, ate it up. He shows us magic tricks, how he uses special effects to make his clients believe they’re getting their money’s worth, and it’s kind of fascinating. Of course, this is also partly due to the writing, which at times is surprisingly creative and makes very good use of some of the genre’s more overused conventions (moaning sounds, shaking beds, etc.). Also, the characters here, from Cotton and his very visible film crew, to the victim and her family, are all very different takes on the usual archetypes, and the way the story moves along, it’s impossible to know what’s really going on until the very end.

However, where the characters and story find some new areas to cover, some of the more specific conventions can still be found here, especially when it comes to the actual scenes of possession and exorcism. We’ve still got the same bone-cracking, contorting of the body, the violent outbursts, and possesses speaking in the third person in low, creepy tones. While there are a few genuinely creepy moments, and some excellent sound design, when all of these occurrences eventually happen, they serve as a reminder of all the other crappy exorcism movies that have been released over the last few years. The Last Exorcism works best when Cotton and the crew are piecing together clues and trying to figure out if there really is a demon, not when the movie tries to convince us that there is one.

It’s hard to know if The Last Exorcism is actually any good, or if I was so impressed because it rose far beyond my expectations, but, either way, I had a great time watching it. Since I went to an advanced screening, a message played before the movie with Eli Roth telling us how he was attempting to bring in audiences primarily using word of mouth, and we should all sign up for Twitter and post our reviews. Well, I’m not going to do that, especially for Eli Roth, who I don’t really care for as a filmmaker or a person, but I will give the movie my recommendation, so, for what it’s worth, Eli, word: spread.

8 out of 10.