On the couch

Peter Madden reviews The Last Exorcism and Tron Legacy.

The Last Exorcism *****
Directed by: Daniel Stamm
Starring: Patrick Fabian, Ashley Bell, Iris Bahr
The Last Exorcism, Daniel Stamm horror mockumentary that plays like a less hysterical version of The Blair Witch Project, is a bloody scary movie.
That’s all you really need to know about it. Want fright? Watch this.
The film is supposed to be a doc on an evangelical minister in the Deep South who, when not rousing his flock to praise Jesus, does a steady sideline in exorcising demons.
The good Reverand isn’t a John Constantine-style demon hunter for hire, however. Rev Marcus (Patrick Fabian) doesn’t believe in demons and barely has faith in his own faith. Instead, he promises to reveal all the tricks of his trade to the camera crew when they follow him to an exorcism in the wilds of Louisiana.
It all starts as a little bit off-putting but strangely interesting. Seeing behind the curtain of the exorcist’s trade makes it seem more like a scam that helps ease the mental anguish of the psychologically damaged than any sort of supernatural curative and Fabian is excellent in making Reverand Marcus more like a streetwise Reverend Cameron (remember? The guy in 7th Heaven? Anyone?) than the dislikable con-man he could have come across as.
The film takes a sudden turn for the scary when it becomes clear that there’s more to the possession of Nell (Ashley Bell), than a few dead farm animals and a creepy, over-zealous father.
To say any more would reveal all the fun of the film but the story develops brilliantly, constantly wrong-footing the audience and leaving you guessing who should be trusted, the Rev, the dad or the seemingly psychotic brother?
The scares are of the simple kind and are brutally effective at wringing a shiver out of even the hardiest souls. Ashley Bell’s physical acting is impressive and the combination of a jerk of her neck and a little mood music is enough to unsettle.
While the ending might feel slightly rushed and the beginning a little slow, The Last Exorcism is a slow burner that will stand up to repeat viewing and, going on the final scene, might just demand them.
From terrifying to terrifyingly bad.

Tron Legacy  *
Directed by:  Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Jeff Bridges; Garrett Hedlund; Bruce Boxleitner; Olivia Wilde; Michael Sheen
Tron Legacy, the follow-up to 1982’s beloved and ground-breaking Tron, was one of the longest awaited and hotly anticipated sequels in the history of geekdom.
One of the first flicks to capitalise on the then new but rapidly expanding computer games craze, Tron featured such crazy ideas as sentient programs, people being sucked into a digital world or “cyber space”, if you will, and justice being meted out in the form of gladiatorial combat where combatants play a deadly game involving motorbikes and deadly glowing aftertrails.
While easy to poke holes in nowadays, back then it was pretty visionary stuff and the visual effects that melded computer graphics with live action were mind-blowing.
Nowadays, of course, the cutting edge tech that made Tron special is probably available as phone app and the bright sparks behind the follow-up aren’t quite visionaries with their eyes on the future as hacks with their eye on the bottom line.
Going straight for the nostalgia euro/dollar/pound, Tron Legacy is an initially visually impressive retooling of the original that assumes an intimate knowledge of the story so far and an appetite that will be sated by seeing something from over a quarter of a century ago only slightly nicer than it was before.
Years after the first flick ends ENCOM, the company built by Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) before he disappeared (again), has turned into a cynical computer megacorp that may as well be called Sicromoft for all the effort made to underline the similarities between the film’s software giant and Bill Gates’ little cottage industry.
Flynn’s son is now a young man, feckless and loaded and in no way interested in taking responsibility for the family business. A series of unfortunate events leads Sam (Garrett Hedlund) getting sucked into the digital world to be reunited with daddy, safe the digital world, find purpose in his life and possibly save the real world from digital invasion (bit bloody late).
It all looks wonderful…for about five minutes. After that the spectacle wears thin and the film is revealed as an incoherant mess with little going for it other than the credits and a good soundtrack by Air.
Avoid like the plague.