MovieChat Forums > The Last Exorcism (2010) Discussion > 'Atheists hate the ending'?

'Atheists hate the ending'?

posted 13 years ago by lilacblossom89
33 replies | jump to latest

I'm kind of surprised by the notion which I've seen on this board that atheists don't like the ending because it turns out that Nell really is possessed.

I'm surprised because:

a.) I'm pretty sure we all knew she would be possessed when we decided to watch this movie. As an atheist, I don't expect the movies I watch to conform with my expectations of reality. I walked into this movie counting on the fact that there would be demons. In fact, I would have been disappointed if there weren't any.

b.) I'm also pretty sure that most people hate the ending for the same reason I did. The whole film kind of had an air of plausibility surrounding it that I was really enjoying. The characters seemed pretty real, their dialogue was believably awkward, and the possession scenes all kind of had a plausible deniability thing going on that left them nicely open for interpretation, so a giant CGI fireball made for a huge, unwelcome tonal shift. The worst of it is, they probably could have done an ending with the same basic plot elements while keeping the tone they'd set and I wouldn't have complained.

c.) I actually feel like the ending of this movie is really, really atheistic. Yeah, Cotton gets his faith back, but it doesn't really accomplish anything. He still dies. Everyone dies. He doesn't save anyone; he doesn't stop the demon. Everyone seems pretty well-screwed, and his leap of faith may well have actively doomed the camera crew. There's no divine intervention present, and the God of the movie seems either powerless to help Cotton defeat the demon, unwilling to help, or just...absent. I don't know; I think if I was Christian, the ending of this movie would bother me.

Compare this to the ending of The Exorcist where

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS GO WATCH THE EXORCIST IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT BECAUSE IT'S REALLY GOOD.

Father Karras regains his faith and sacrifices his life (and possibly his immortal soul or something, what with the dying possessed and committing suicide, but I was never clear on that), but because of his sacrifice, Reagan is saved. It's a beautiful gesture, and it gives the ending of the film actual meaning. It's an overtly Christian ending, and that never stopped me from liking it.

END SPOILERS

It's possible I disliked the ending to The Last Exorcism because it just wasn't very good, is what I'm getting at.

[–] gizmomogwai 13 years ago

I wouldn't call the ending atheistic at all. If you think about it, the father, who we assumed was a nut, thought that his daughter was possessed, his livestock was being killed, the local church could not be trusted, and that killing his daughter was the only way to save her. He was proven right about all of that. And yeah, Cotton probably died, but now he goes to heaven as a martyr. Wouldn't be the first time someone died for their faith.

[–] jimmysmitsimdb 13 years ago

lilacblossom89

It's possible I disliked the ending to The Last Exorcism because it just wasn't very good, is what I'm getting at.

I agree it wasn't very good and I agree that atheists dislike the ending because she was really possessed. It is just like Frailty. Have a about the most inane, stupid, and far reaching incredulities and people will argue about how it made sense. Have a movie where in that specific movie's world God exists, and people start complaining and going to all sorts of lengths saying the movie wasn't really what it was supposed to be about.

[–] h79423 13 years ago

Being an atheist, I might give some insights on how I felt about the ending.

Way before the ending, I got the feeling the filmmakers were not quite sure which way to go. Their script was short and they needed more material, so the movie begins to fall apart.

Now, the ending itself, I thought was pretty clever. They had been obviously toying with whether Nell was actually possessed, but to me it was pretty clear she wasn't. She was just a disturbed teen been raised in a very religious environment.

Now, as I was watching the ceremony, I saw Pastor Mahler and Becky doing the exact same thing as Cotton was doing. I thought Becky had smuggled a fake baby there (she had the body type to do it) and they used it to feed the flames somehow. Mahler was a showman just like Cotton. After all, we don't really see anything supernatural, although I can see how some might interpret what happened as demonic, but there isn't any actual evidence of it.

Based on the commentary, this was not what the filmmakers were going for, though.

Also, the commentary with an exorcist, a victim and a psychologist, made me feel these people (all three) were very sick and needed help, not delusions of demons. Authority figures selling these ideas is very wrong and very harmful. And the psychologist is not doing any favors to her profession.

[–] ReservoirDerek 13 years ago

To say that any group doesn't like a movie because of what they believe is a bit ignorant, don't you think? I mean, I'm an Atheist and I LOVE The Passion of the Christ. It's a beautiful story. True? I think not. Beautiful? Yes.

The problem with The Last Exorcism was the poorly written, horribly rushed ending. It left me feeling unsatisfied. Not because I'm an Atheist... because it was a BAD ending.

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[–] h79423 13 years ago

Agreed. I don't mind stories where the basis of the story is that a religion is true and it sticks to that. Just one more fantasy world to enjoy.

[–] minhas4 12 years ago

I was starting to agree that it was an elaborate con, but you're saying the commentary says otherwise. I watched it on Netflix so I don't get the commentary. Could you or anyone else elaborate on what the director meant with the ending?

[–] SherlockVonEinstein 12 years ago

An atheist (and most theists) can appreciate fictional works without the content conforming to their paritcular world view. (You know, because it's fictional.) Especially if it's a horror film that's supposed to be about possession. It's sort of a given that one of the characters is going to be, well, possessed.

To assume that athiests would be let down by the supernatural being "real" within the context of a movie, you have to assume that they went into the movie expecting that the supernatural elements would be disproven at one point of another. Who would make that assumption going into a horror film? It would make the whole experience anti-climatic.

This is something I've seen with growing frequency in the past few years on IMDB. I don't know how many threads have started out with "Hey! Atheists! Did you hate it when...?" And the answer is always the same. "Nope. It's just a damn movie."

Strangely enough, and with great irony, as someone who lives in the Bible belt, I've heard a few of my Christian friends/acquaintances state that they couldn't appreciate a movie because it conflicted with their views. It seems like to me that when an individual assumes atheists can't appreciate the supernatural in fiction, they are simply projecting their own inabilitiy to appreciate secularism.

[–] senua 12 years ago

Actually there are a fair few atheists that get genuinely offended when God is brought into things, there was a BBC drama a few years back called apparitions about a catholic exorcist facing off against real demons and there was a lot of complaining and cries of christian propaganda from them, turns out it was written by an atheist that finds spirituality fascinating and likes to explore points of view that aren't his own in his stories. Ooops.

I think that type of atheist(the complainers) is basically someone that finds anything outside their own world view/comfort zone threatening and hey, they come in all walks of life (as you've just pointed out) so it's kind of unfair to talk about it as an atheist response because plenty of atheists could watch the same thing and appreciate it as just a story.

[–] DaliParton 11 years ago

there was a BBC drama a few years back called apparitions about a catholic exorcist facing off against real demons and there was a lot of complaining and cries of christian propaganda from them

Funny how I remember that controversy completely differently from you. What I remember is a bunch of hand-wringing that "christians" would flip out about it, which apparently they didn't really do either.

Here's proof: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3184460/BBC-horror-film-faces-r eligious-outcry.html

What I do not remember are any atheists complaining that it was "christian propaganda." Sounds like projection to me.

[–] senua 11 years ago

Go on the page for it on here and if they haven't been purged for being old there are plenty of 'I'm an atheist and this christian propaganda on the bbc offends me!' topics. I actually defended atheists as a whole and pointed out this kind of reaction is universal to a certain type of ignorant person that comes in all sorts of belief systems or lack there of. So what's your problem? Other than you assuming if you didn't see something it can't be true if a christian is talking about it?

Maybe you should ask yourself why you felt the need to try and make out I'm a nutty christian hating on atheists for made up reasons? If anything you come over as projecting your own assumptions at me.

[–] senua 11 years ago

Sorry if that reply was aggressive or rude, I've had very little sleep and I saw the 'sounds like projection to me' and got grumpy. Honesty it's not, imdb was crawling with 'offended' people of the atheist persuasion calling it propaganda simply because it started from the view point that god is real add to that the episode where the possessed dad had loads of atheist books like the god delusion because his demon made him into an angry at god not really atheist (saying god isn't real but being furious at/about god at the same time) then it displeased them futher. I'm sure there were some Christians that didn't like the mother teresa stuff and just the general tone of it too but the point I was making is about the idea that something written from a viewpoint someone doesn't personally agree with is certainly not a case for calling it propaganda especially when it turns out the writer comes from the first way of thinking. Its just ignorant to distrust and make a big fuss like that and again it isn't just atheists that do it, it's a personality/psychological type that covers all sorts of backgrounds and ideologies.

[–] DaliParton 11 years ago

I wouldn't put much stock in comments on an IMDB board. There will always be a few nutters willing to say anything, whether they believe it or not and they often end up here on IMDB. When you wrote "a fair few" I was expecting organized protests or at least something in the real world like a letter-writing campaign. A handful of loud-mouths on IMDB isn't the kind of thing to hang your hat on as being representative of anything.

[–] slaintemhath 12 years ago

Well as someone who doesn't hold to any dogma or superstitious belief I didn't mind the ending and I certainly didn't see any demonic possession - specifically because demons don't exist.

At the end I saw a group of people who are as misguided as their counterparts performing what I considered a gynaecological exam on a girl and a large bonfire - plenty of those around.

I don't even consider Marcus having his faith restored - he's just a good man going into battle with what weapon he has to hand - if those he opposes believe in Satan then they'll also believe in the power of god. Personally I thought it was as good an ending as it would get.

[–] vilafire 7 years ago

Why murder the crew if she's just seeing her OBGYN??

I think if the budget was bigger the finale would have sealed the possession deal. All they could afford was the fire.

[–] ElectricWarlock 12 years ago

I didn't like the ending because it seemed so abrupt. They're going back to the house, they witness a Black Mass type ritual going on with the baby's birth, then BOOM, they all get murdered, the movie is over. The ending came out of nowhere and barely gave you enough time to figure out what is going on. I would've been OK with that ending if it didn't happen so fast. There should've been more of a buildup to the ending with more suspense like the ending to The Blair Witch Project. It just seemed sort of rushed to me. Other than that, the movie is good though.

Come, fly the teeth of the wind. Share my wings.

[–] Isnam777 12 years ago

SherlockVonEinstein: I'm a Christian and I appreciate alot of things many people of faith would consider secular. I love horror movies (or any good movie) that has a nihilistic ending. Just because it comes from someone who is not a Christian doesn't mean I can't enjoy it. I'm a huge fan of grunge rock which is filled with so-called "nihilism".

Incidentally, there are plenty of secular people who have issues with movies with questionable content. Ever heard of a movie "A Serbian Film"? People don't need to have their beliefs challenged for their sensibilities to be offended.

Persoanlly, I'm comfortable in my Faith so why would I feel challenged?

I also believe people have the right to make any kind of film they want. Censorship is generally bad, and can show a lack of faith for the people who are offended. Just look at China, an atheist nation, near the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, there's a pretty good example of atheists flipping their lids when their beliefs (in this case communism) are challenged.

Peace is not the absence of affliction, but the presence of God. ~Author Unknown

[–] DaliParton 11 years ago

I also believe people have the right to make any kind of film they want. Censorship is generally bad, and can show a lack of faith for the people who are offended. Just look at China, an atheist nation, near the anniversary of Tiananmen Square, there's a pretty good example of atheists flipping their lids when their beliefs (in this case communism) are challenged.

I was totally digging what you were saying until this part. The chinese leadership didn't flip out because the Tienanmen Square protests were challenging their belief in communism. They flipped out because the protests were challenging the leadership's hold on power, just like dictators everywhere become quite disgruntled when threatened.

Besides, Christ was the original socialist, so it isn't even like communism is any more an atheist belief than it is a theist belief.

[–] WilltoPower 11 years ago

I am an agnostic, which means I neither believe nor do not believe in God. None of us can ever know, so fighting about it is a waste of time. Life is a lot better once you realize that and you can watch things like this without some kind of stake in the underlying lore.

I don't think this movie or ending would upset atheists unless they made the mistake of believing that the movie was supposed to promote their cause. They would have to be *beep* retarded to think this, given the entire premise revolves around a man rediscovering his faith.

Having said that I would agree that it would bother me if I held strong Christian beliefs as it seemed as though God quite honestly didn't give a *beep* about anything or anyone in this movie regardless of their intent, state, or the motivations behind their actions.

In that regard, it could actually strengthen an atheist view point as it would show a God who either doesn't care or doesn't exist. The supernatural elements wouldn't negate this point as atheism doesn't outright dismiss the supernatural, only the premise of deities.

Personally, I liked it. I thought it was a perfect ending to the movie, which was Cotton Marcus's story. The entire thing focuses on him and his journey. Allowing him to find his faith, regardless of whether or not it's justified or not, brought his character full circle.

[–] sandifay62 11 years ago

I'm a Christian, but not a fundamentalist. But I believe watching a movie, especially a genre movie, like a horror or comedy movies is about losing yourself in a world that isn't tied to your real life beliefs. This movie was made for entertainment. So people can dislike what happens within the story simply because they think the story could've been told better. Most people now why they're watching a horror movie and just because a horror movie has religious or spiritual elements doesn't mean that those elements are the only reason any of us are watching it.

Just like the Exorcist, I see theme as more about faith than religion. It's ending wasn't about the Devil winning as much as it was about a man's struggle with his own faith. IN the Exorcist, the priests faith proved strong as he sacrificed himself for the little girl. In this movie, Cotton was duped by people and an entity that knew his faith was non-existent. His confronting the demon, to me, was more of his ego trying to save face than sacrificing anything. He didn't really find his faith. He had to be shown the demon before he believed it. The jerk got his co-workers killed. But then the co-workers were dumb to not just leave, anyway. Lol

I liked the fact that she was really possessed. I want my horror movies to be about real monsters or real evil. I feel ripped of when they're just crazy people that need medical help or some relative trying to drive someone crazy. I give the film credit for sticking to it's guns.