Movie Review: The Last Exorcism

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS!

When I first saw this trailer it looked to be quite disturbing and looked to be one of those good scary movies that'll have people jumping out of their seats in the theater.  I didn't know much about the movie going in except for the trailer and some reviews that I read saying that the ending was disappointing. 

This is a documentary type of movie and for a little while I got the sense that it might have been a mockumentary with the comedy that was involved in the earlier part of the movie.

It starts off with a preacher named Cotton who agreed to be part of this documentary to show that exorcisms aren't real and that demons aren't real.  He had grown up as a preachers son and one of the things he says is that every preacher needs a pitch, something to draw in the congregation, to draw in the money because love doesn't keep the church open.

He starts to doubt his faith and question God and everything else, but he keeps preaching to put food on the table for him and his family.  So the preaching isn't because he believes in God or his faith anymore, it's just a job and a paycheck coming in. 

The open half of this movie is important, even though it's filled with small jokes - like how he incorporated his mothers banana bread recipe into his sermon and everyone still threw praises.  It reveals a lot about the storyline.  One important thing that was said is that if you believe in God, then you have to believe in the devil and the demons.  There's a great shot of his son saying that his dad fights demons, vampires and ghosts ... and when asked if his dad believes in those things he shakes his head with his finger to his lips to keep quiet.

He decides to take the film crew on a trip to document an "exorcism" that's he's going to perform and give them behind the scenes footage of how fake it all is. 

When he arrives in the town he says that it's easy for the people around the area to make things up based on things passed down and superstition.  One lady interviewed at a gas station said that the gates of hell was in the location they were going.  They arrive at the farm and a boy they meet tell them to turn around and starts to throw rocks at their car ... he ends up being the farmers son.  They meet the father and he seems to still be distraught over losing his wife to cancer and now facing the issue that his daughter might be possessed by a demon. 

We meet the daughter, Nell, and she's a 16 year old girl who has the innocence of a 10 or 11 year old.  When Cotton talks to her for the first time she really shines through and that warm innocent smile makes you feel for her and the pain of losing her mother ... she was her best friend.  He does some preliminary "tests" to her and then makes her dip her feet in a pan of water.  The water starts to bubble from something Cotton slipped into the water.  After setting up the girls bedroom he brings her in and performs an exorcism which by all accounts is fake.  You can see daughters fear and hope that whatever is in her leaves ... you can see it in the father too.  The son on the other hand is looking for all the smoke and mirrors since he saw Cotton drop something in the water to make it bubble.

After it was done he says that she's good to go ... she's happy and was now resting.  Quick and easy and the show was done, we even get a thumbs up from the son as they were leaving for a good performance.  A lot of humor thoughout this part of the movie as we see the behind the scenes footage of how things were done.

What seemed to be a done deal and Cotton getting paid for the exorcism and showing the film crew that it was all fake, we find Nell in his hotel room seemingly possessed.  This mid part of the movie goes back and forth with her possession or lack thereof.  The audience is left to decide at this point if she really does have a demon or doesn't. 

We find out that the dad pulled her out of the local church because he felt that they weren't teaching her good things.  This point in the movie seemed like a dad who was intouch with the old church and wanted his daughter to be taught the old beliefs and traditions without having the modern day view of things.  The father was definitely over protective of Nell. 

The father takes his son to the hospital after Nell cut his face and the son writes a note to Cotton saying not to leave her alone with him ... not to leave Nell alone with the father.  This was a key point in Cotton and his team to start to make presumptions about what was going on in the family and fed the story of them insisting Nell was just mentally disturbed.  We come to find out from the doctor leaving a message that Nell is pregnant and this continued to work on the minds of the crew that the father was abusing Nell ... especially after finding her chained to the bed.

Cotton still believes that she needs some mental help and that there isn't a demon here but just the daughter acting out and being scared because she got pregnant from a boy from the cafe down the road. 

This all is leading up to a finale which is questionable and you think comes out of right field.  There's a "wtf" moment when the final 8 minutes of the movie starts.  They find out the boy in the cafe is gay and that he wasn't with Nell ... then some more inconsistencies with the local preachers story who was now in the house with Nell and the family. 

They come back to find that house with satan drawings and the family gone.  As they are about to leave they hear Nell screaming and run to find a huge fire with some of the town people there, in robes, chanting.  Nell is on an altar with then trying to get the "baby" out of her ... we see the local preacher leading the whole thing.  The baby gets thrown into the fire and we see the fire erupt into something with the likes of a demon and not just a fire burning. 

This is where the audice gets lost, this is when the audience is left scratching their head and wondering what is happening, or what just happened.  But when you take that step back and look at the movie as a whole and the actual story, then you understand what and why that all takes place. 

The audience is drawn to watch the movie with the title of it being an exorcism, with expectations of it being like the original movie.  Joint breaking, blood, vomiting and all of the things that come along with demons.  But the exorcism that's referenced in the title really isn't about Nell and the demon that's inside her (yes she was actually possessed), it's about Cotton's last exorcism on himself, to rid himself of the demons that's caused him to doubt his faith and to not believe in God - to the point of even mocking it and making fun of it. 

At the start we find a preacher/minister who is fake, who's entire show is just to bring in the money to support his family.  This movie is a journey about how his faith is constantly tested and he constantly fails, until the very end where you see him hold his cross and run towards the demon in the fire to save Nell.  His faith is restored ... his belief is back but it took a physical demon in front of him to believe in God again. 

Ironic how he starts by saying that if you believe in God, you must believe in the devil and demons.  But for him it was the other way around ... he ended up believing in the demons to find his belief in God again.

I think this movie was extremely deep, and had a lot of it's focus on faith.  It's easy to draw parallels with this movie and the youth/church group I work with.  The kids are fired up and gung ho about things at first ... they preach, they go to everything, the are on fire.  They hit a point in their live where there's doubt in their belief or faith in one form or another ... then they disappear.  Some continue on their own spiritual journey while others just lose it all and forget all of that.  It'll take something to snap, or some kind of event in their life to make them realize that what they first experienced was all real, and to have that faith restored.  I see it as something that we all go through, even those who aren't religious, we ride that rollercoaster and hopefully we can be like Cotton and through all the jokes, the money, the scams he's pulling ... he was able to find the truth and find what was real.

This is quite a smart "horror" movie, people get lost in the ending but looking back at everything that was said and done, that's what the movie was building up for.  The tagline for this movie is "Believe in Him" which could be taken in a few different ways ...

Conclusion : Good if you're not expecting a fright fest and are looking for a movie where you have to think.  Don't watch this movie if you're just looking for a jump out of your seat horror movie. 

+ mon

Google's [and Simon's] New Toy - Nexus One Review

It's been a while ... well I guess the blog restarts with the review of HTC's Google Nexus One "Super Phone!"

Please keep in mind while reading this review or evaluation, that I haven't used the Android platform before, I've played with the iPhone a little, but am coming from a Symbian system that was on my Nokia N95 and Nokia N97.  I never went with the iPhone because of the battery not being replaceable without having to void the warranty or send it back to Apple - that was a dealbreaker for me, even though I know how good the OS is and all the available apps.

For those that don't know, Symbian is the most used operating system for cell phones, back in mid 2009 it had about 50% of the market.  

I've been using Symbian on my past two phones and they have worked really well, there are a lot of free apps which were very useful.  Compared to the iPhone and Android OS, Symbian lacks the polished look and gui.  Aside from that the only other issue that I found with Symbian was memory management, I would have apps crash on me because there wasn't enough resources, I blame this on the OS, but I could be wrong and this might be something with the phones firmware.

Enough of the backstory, onto the Nexus One (I'll post pictures and video later, the BBerry's camera is horrible).  

Unboxing - when you first receive the box you'll notice Google's hand was involved in it all the way and HTC seems like it just created the physical hardware that Google had told them how to and what to do.  It's very sleek and sexy, the screen is big and the body of the phone feels great in your hand.  The plastic/rubbery part which makes up the back of the phone is interesting and gives it just enough grip that you feel it won't slip out of your grip.  There is also a part on the back where you can have engravings done.  

It comes with the charger, headphones/microphone, 4GB microSD card, data cable and pouch.  Standard things that come with mostly all cell phones.

First Impressions - the time it takes to turn the phone on from pressing the button to being able to open apps and use the phone takes about 30 seconds, this was with nothing extra installed and fresh out of the box and charged.  With all the apps and utilities that I installed over the past day, the start up time is now 1 minute and 15 seconds.  

One of the first things you'll notice is the crispness of the screen.  My past phones have had really nice colors and contrast, but seeing the screen of the Nexus One pales in comparison.  It's extremely clean and the resolution quite good - to put it mildly.

Android OS - this is the first time that I've used the Android OS for more than a day and I like it ... I really really like it!  When I first used the Android OS on the G1, I wasn't impressed, it wasn't something that blew me away or even something that made me "oooooooo" and "ahhhhh" it was just "eh" when I first got my hands on it way back when.  Having the Android OS running on the Nexus One was a different experience, the quick response time from when you first touch the screen to when the app(s) open or whatever you're selecting comes up is quick - I'm guessing this is a combination of the OS and the Snapdragon processor.  

It's very responsive and customizable, which is something I like to do.  There's just something about changing as many options as you can on the phone to make it your own that's quite satisfying, this was a huge reason why I stayed with Symbian for so long, but I never had the time with the iPhone to be able to try it out extensively, so I can't compare.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but on the iPhone you can't multitask, on this ... you can.  I've had a lot of different applications running all the same time without much slowdown or stuttering.  You will get the occasional hiccup here and there, but there hasn't been anything significant.  You will also get the error messages from time to time, but I think those are from the apps themselves and not from the OS or the phone.  

Speed - the Nexus One is extremely fast, the processor and the OS work very well together.  For those who were into computers back in the day ... you'll remember this well.  Sitting there at your desk or wherever you were staring at that CRT monitor, pressing that big power button on that gray or off white box, probably running Windows 95 or even Windows 3.1 ... I remember when the question was asked, "what kind of pc do you have?" my answer was a very confident "I have a 386" or even a 486 for those who had faster pc's.  Do you remember how fast that was back then?  Then do you remember when the pc's came out with the 1GHz processors and that blew the 386's and the 486's of the world away?  This is how it is for me ... again coming from how Symbian ran on my N97, where I would sometimes sit there and wait for things to load, or cancel out the error messages; to having a phone that instantaneously opens the applications, that runs smoothly and seems like you can open about 10 more apps without any problems.  

That's the easiest way for me to describe the speed differential I'm experiencing with the Nexus One ... from the 486 to the 1GHz processor.  I'm not 100% but I think the processing speed of the Nexus One is almost double that of most of the popular phones out there.  The RAM is also another + where it has 512MB's.  It's only a matter of time where we'll be laughing at that number and cell phones will have 2GB's of RAM.

Marketplace - there is a lot of debate from the iPhone lovers and the Android lovers at which is better based on the apps available.  I think the iPhone App Store has about 100,000 apps, while the Android Marketplace has about 20,000 apps.  Alright ... having the kind of thinking I have and thinking logically, I see it as the iPhone having a headstart of a year or maybe more, hence the larger set of apps on their store.  I'm not a developer (yet) but from what I hear, a huge difference with Android and the iPhone is that Android is open, so people can make their apps with little or no interaction with Google.  But the iPhone on the other hand has to get approved and all sorts of hoops that you need to jump through to get your app on there.  

20,000 apps seems more than enough for me.  I've downloaded about 20-30 apps already and they are all free ... I haven't paid for them yet, but I'm sure I'll come across some that I'll just have to buy.  

Most of the apps on the Marketplace have been without issue, there were about 2 or 3 of them that didn't work with the Nexus One and the 2.1 Android OS, but those were rare.  The apps that I got were again smooth and ran well on the phone, I probably encountered 1 or 2 error messages from an app (not sure which one).  

Live Wallpapers - one of the features that Google pointed out was the live wallpapers which you can interact with and are touch sensitive.  These are fun and visually stimulating, but they don't offer much in terms of functionality.  They are pure eye candy and should be treated as such.

Sync - another key feature of Google is how the Nexus One syncs with most (if not all) of the Google products that you already use.  Gmail, Google Voice, Google Talk etc etc.  So far they have worked seamlessly with the Nexus One ... as soon as you sign into your Gmail account, it syncs all of your contacts automatically and does it on the fly - so if you edit your contacts online, it will refresh on your phone.  It will fetch and match the facebook profiles with your contacts, so you don't have 2 or 3 of ever person on your contact list.  Again I'm not sure if other phones do this, but I know my N97 didn't, so this was new to me.  

If you have a Google Voice number, you can use it on your Nexus One.  So when you're calling someone you can either call with the phone number tied into your SIM card, or whichever Google Voice number that you have (in my case 347-878-SRAY).  You get access to all the Google Voice functionality as well, including the voicemail which is transcribed and you can read, or you can listen to it on the phone without having to dial into your voicemail.

Connectivity - I have it running on TMobile and the 3G has been a steady connection throughout my office, and also my house.  My past phone had issues when I was at home and I would lose signal when I'm in certain parts of the house, the Nexus One had signal in those trouble areas which was surprising - given that I live in the basement and part of the ceiling is enforced with metal, part of it is like living in a bomb shelter with no radio signals coming in or out.  

It was announced that TMobile had upped their 3G network to 7.2Mbs/sec ... here are the results of my speedtests on the phone:

wifi - 581.2KBs/sec DOWN / 89.7KBs/sec UP
Edge - 11.7KBs/sec DOWN / 2.5KBs/sec UP
3G (at home) - 187KBs/sec DOWN / 126.8KBs/sec UP
3G (in Manhattan) - 356.8/sec DOWN / 164.2KBs/sec UP

The wifi connection is correct and it goes with my speeds at home.  The Edge is slower, almost like those boxes that make all the noise with the beeps and chirps running at 56K.  Seems like the 3G in my house was slower than in Manhattan where it's blanketed with 3G.  The 3G in Manhattan seemed to be running at 3Mbs/sec.

Bluetooth and wifi were not a problem to setup, I don't think I need to go into detail more.

AT&T CUSTOMERS READ THIS - If you're on AT&T and plan on getting the Nexus One "unlocked" you will not have 3G speeds.  The current Nexus One will not connect to the 3G network for AT&T because TMobile runs their 3G at a different frequency than the other carriers, and does not support AT&T's frequency for 3G.  

ISSUES & PROBLEMS - Every phone has their share of problems, I didn't find many on the Nexus One, but there are a few that exists.  There are four hard buttons on the front of the phone that are for "back," "options," "home" and "search."  Pressing directly on the icons of these buttons will not work, you need to press a little bit above the actual icons to activate each option.  I'm not sure if this can be corrected with a software update, but it seems that the mapping of the areas to touch for these are a little off.  After using it for about an hour you learn how to "press" these buttons and the problem is goes unnoticed.

The camera on the phone is a good one, 5MP with an LED flash.  It takes 720x480 video as well ... but there is an issue.  There isn't a hard button for the camera, so if you are like me and like to take pictures of your face from time to time, having the back of the camera facing your face and trying to press the "shutter" button on the screen is something hard to accomplish.  It took me a little bit of practice to get this right but after a while I was able to get it done.  

Speaker quality is not that great on the Nexus One.  There is one mono speaker on the back of the phone and when using the speaker phone it comes out a bit pitchy (I sound like an American Idol judge now).  The speaker isn't that loud either, I'm used to the great speakers that are on the Nokia N97.  

While using the corded headset I did notice that there were little noises that I heard which might have been the "noise canceling" mic cancelling the noise for the party on the other end of the line, but not me.  I'm not sure if this was the issue or if I had low signal when I was making the call from inside my house.  I'll revisit this issue and see if this was an isolated incident.  

Other Thoughts - well I've had this phone for about 24 hours now and have been playing with it when given the opportunity, and I like it, it's a solid smart phone ... or as Google calls it a "super phone."  It's quick, it's responsive, it's really good to look at the screen, the apps are there, the speed is there, space is up to the user but you do get the 4GBs to start with.  People always label phones as the "iPhone Killer" but I don't think any phone is a "killer" or any other phone, it comes down to personal preference, what features the end user is looking for and what are deal breakers.  This is another phone that competes with the iPhone along with all the other phones on the market.  The apps are impressive, useful and easy to get, updates, installed, uninstalls and all the functionality to make a phone attractive are here in the Nexus One.  Given Google's track record for their apps and mostly everything else they've done, it seems like their Nexus One is going quite well, with a lot of additions and room to grow.  Adding more functionality and software updates could make this a phone that's very very well polished, the user interface and learning curve is small, so don't be afraid if you've never used an Android device yet ... it's not that hard to learn.  As with Gmail when it first started and for the years it went on and on ... it was still in "beta" I guess because they kept on adding more and more functionality that the user wanted to see.  Maybe that's how the Nexus One will be, being in "beta" for the upcoming months and years as Google adds more to their labs for testing.

One last thing before I cut this review/evaluation ... Google Navigation is incredibly good and fast.  Those stand alone GPS units in your car will become paper weights if you decide to get the Nexus One and use it while driving.  

+ mon

Update on Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 2:10PM by MONStar

One thing I forgot to mention was the Text To Speech in almost every text field on the phone.  It's incredibly accurate, I have been "texting" everyone using the Text To Speech function and it's about 90% accurate!

It's extremely useful for texting, emailing and even searching online.  It works just as well with the Google Navigation, just say "navigate to [say the address]" and it'll route it for you.

Simple and easy ... and most of all, it works!