'The Last Exorcism' is in the spirit of 'Marjoe'
The low-budget horror film "The Last Exorcism," released Friday, borrows heavily from a particular movie, though probably not the one you think.
There are similarities to 1973's "The Exorcist," of course. The newer movie follows a Louisiana evangelist, Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), who has decided to expose himself as a fraud. Shot in a documentary style, "The Last Exorcism" resembles faux-docs like "The Blair Witch Project" and "Paranormal Activity."
But its real inspiration is the Oscar-winning 1972 documentary "Marjoe," about Marjoe Gortner, a onetime child minister (he began preaching at the age of 4) who did invite a film crew to expose the tricks of his trade.
Gortner, then in his late 20s, was living a double life, touring the nation's revival tents for half the year, then returning to the hippie paradise of California. Tired of his own hypocrisy, he outed himself to filmmakers Sarah Kernochan and Howard Smith. Anticipating his own followers seeing the film, Gortner said: "I'm hoping they'll see it's not necessary to have some person to get you off, to put your faith in."
The fictional Marcus isn't far removed from Gortner: Both are handsome (Gortner later became an actor) and winningly charismatic. Both lack faith in God, but not in goodness. They also understand that their parishioners have a very real need to believe in them.
"Marjoe" won the Oscar for best documentary but never played in the Bible Belt because, according to Kernochan, the distributor feared the reaction. By contrast, "The Last Exorcism" is being released to 3,000 screens nationwide. In a way, Gortner's story is finally reaching the masses.