It freaked me out!

The last time I was freaked out after watching a horror movie was when I was about 12 years old and I was introduced to Mr Barlow from Salem’s Lot. If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you will know by now that I have a bit of an obsession about him. I begged my sisters and my mother to sleep in their bed with them after seeing him and I cried when they told me to grow up.

27 years later and I watched The Last Exorcism the other night and thankfully I wasn’t alone otherwise I would have totally freaked out.

Horror films that have a theme of blood, gore and torture don’t do it for me. In fact, the tension and horror is too much that I have to turn them off. I can’t stand them and I wonder what future generations will be like when they don’t have horror movies that rely on your imagination to terrify.

The Last Exorcism has had mixed reviews and I think that it’s one of those films that either you love or hate. Personally, I enjoyed it, though at first I did have doubts with the shaky camera and documentary style of the phony priest telling us why exorcisms are mostly scams, why he scammed people and the offer of showing us all how easy it is to con people in distress.

The priest, Cotton Marcus is played by Patrick Fabian and funnily enough he reminds me of a real life individual who I won’t name. He’s so cheesy and such a con artist that you sit there waiting for him to get what’s coming to him. The more involved he gets with his final exorcism, the more you find yourself beginning to feel sorry for him and then you find yourself wishing he would just leave. Then he leaves, but he makes the mistake in turning around and heading back.  This is such good character writing!

The whole idea of being possessed by a demon scares me, because I don’t want to find out if it’s true. The only way I would find out for sure is if I experienced it and quite frankly, you can forget that! I don’t want my head to spin and be in the flames of Hell while a demon makes my body bend in unimaginable ways and makes my throat bulge to the point of almost bursting.

There’s one scene in the film where the demon starts breaking the girls fingers, one by one. Oh God NO!

Yes, I’m such a mard arse, but it’s films like these that I really enjoy. Films that play on your mind, allowing the viewer to scare themselves or as much as their imagination will allow. The scenes of being hacked to death in the film, you don’t need to see the evidence of being hacked do you? Let your imagination do that.

Some say that the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was so good due to the psychological element of it. Ask yourself a question, do you actually see the chainsaw cutting into the bodies? Tobe Hooper the director was skilled in allowing the viewer to imagine that.

Actress Ashley Bell who plays the possessed teenager Nell Sweetzer is astonishingly scary. Her eyes and evil expression unnerved me to the point where I did almost chicken out and switch off the film. She’s a brilliant actress and I reckon there’s more to come from her. I wonder if she scared herself playing the role of a possessed teenager?

Oh well, as I write this I’m on my own and it’s dark. Wish me luck as I’m about to walk out into the long dark hallway…

ON MY OWN!

Please visit the films official website for lots more information http://www.thelastexorcism.com