Ray Parker Jr once declared that he wasn’t afraid of ghosts. It seems he’s also not afraid of selling out in the name of a directory enquiries service either, but that’s another matter. His constitution for all things ghoulish though is likely to remain intact as far as The Last Exorcism is concerned.

It is yet another faux journey into fear as a documentary crew set out to capture demonic goings on with their shaky-cam.

Being a reverend is all about being the showman for Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian). His style of sermon would be better suited to the casinos of Las Vegas, rather than the backwaters of Louisiana; he’s quite the performer. Part of his job was to carry out exorcisms, but after hearing a story about a child being suffocated in the process, he declined to do any more. But when a film crew want to follow him around, he decides to put on one more show with a final exorcism.

This leads him and a camera team of two to a small farm where Louis Sweetzer (Louis Herthum) suspects that his daughter Nell (Ashley Bell) is possessed by something downright evil.

Although Marcus has concerns with the so-called victim being a young girl, he lets his moral judgement slide being this is his swansong demon-outing.

What was supposed to be a routine display of jiggery pokery, captured on film for prosperity, ends up exposing demonic behaviour that none of those involved were at all prepared for.

Now I did a bit of work on All Things Great and Small, but even I'd admit I'm out of my depth here.

It’s difficult not to examine any film that uses a mockumentary style of capturing evil without referring to The Blair Witch Project. However, this film really has more in common with the US comedy show Modern Family, as well as Rosemary’s Baby. If you reckon that sounds like an odd mix, you’re not wrong.

The first half is certainly presented well. Fabian truly embraces the role of Marcus, fleshing out a part that could have easily fallen by the wayside for most of the film. Not only does he hold the film together he holds your attention too.

Director Daniel Stamm, who’s had experience with the mockumentary style with his 2008 A Necessary Death, starts off on a solid footing in creating that almost casual form of capturing the action. Where he loses the plot however, quite literally, is in the film’s final third, where it almost feels like something is taking over the film itself. Where it sets out as being true to the free-form nature of the mockumentary, it gets possessed by the need to mutate into a Hollywood horror film. Where once there was ambient sound, droplets of orchestrated fear are suddenly heard. So, once this tape that captured this horrific event was found, someone decided that it would be a great idea to add a scary soundtrack to it to make it that little bit more authentic?! By doing so all Stamm achieves is make a further mockery of the mockumentary.

To make matters worse, he also lets the final third of the story run away with itself. There’s no cohesion to it and it just doesn’t sit well with anything that passed before it. And all the good build-up in tension that it achieved is completely wasted with a finale that is about as terrifying as a kitten sneezing.

Still, there are some strong performances here that are certainly worth a look, particularly from Fabian and the young Landry Jones who plays the not-so-possessed brother Caleb.

It’s just a shame that the film didn’t continue on the path it began; if it did so, there’s a chance it might have provided the chilling frights it so desperately needed.