The Last Exorcism

The Last Exorcism Trailer

Plot Summary...
Directed by Daniel Stamm.
This movie follows the traditions of recent films, in the use of 'found' footage. This type of movie is similar to Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project in that they use hand held cameras to record events for documenting purposes. The footage is used to represent a documentary following Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a preacher who performs exorcisms, and although losing faith in this, he is convinced to perform one more, for the entertainment of reality TV. Cotton then performs a 'scam' exorcism on the farmers daughter, and convinces the father that she is saved. However things become more peculiar, and she is found in a catastrophic state, and admitted to hospital. They then find that she is actually pregnant, following an attack on her brother with a knife. Therefore an actual exorcism takes place, and Cotton then discovers that the girl is actually possessed by a demon, and so the gore continues to unfold.

Trailer Analysis...
The trailer begins in the daylight, setting the scene and showing a man in his car who seems to be going to somewhere unfamiliar, the trailer gradually gets darker to represent the way the film gets creepier as it goes on, which is conventional for horror films as they usually start off quite normal and ordinary. Captions of text have been used to give the audience a hint of what the film is about and what the topic is, for example, 'Reverend Cotton Marcus has performed over 47 excorcisms'. A close up of a letter is also used to help the reader quickly understand what the film will be about. There are a number of different camera angles used in the trailer, such as a canted angle to keep it interesting and ensure the audience is gripped to the action. Throughout the trailer some of the camera work is hand held which adds to the unknowingness of the film and suggests uncomfortableness and distress. The shots are fast paced, short and there are a lot of them in quick succession to heighten the sense of tension and drama. There are also quick flashes between the shots to break them up. The colour scheme which has been used is fairly ordinary dull colours, such as cream, grey white and brown, but this is mixed in with a bold red colour at various points in the trailers to stick with the convention of horror films and as an effective technique to scare the reader. Close up, fuzzy shots have been used also to add to the atmosphere and intended effect on the audience.