One of the coolest things about Comic Con is the very early screenings of movies that studios trot out to garner buzz and get mouths talking at the event. In recent years, Tropic Thunder, Inglorious Basterds and District 9, among others, have all been Comic Con fodder, as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World has been this time around.

The horror movie The Last Exorcism (in theaters Aug. 27) screened last night for folks, and it’s a rather impressive recent film in the genre. Told in faux documentary style, the story follows Louisiana holy man Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), the youngest in a long line of exorcists. But unlike his predecessors, he doesn’t believe in demons and thinks “exorcising” them from people is a load of hooey. Cotton decides to take a camera crew along to film how much hooey it exactly is when a teenage girl named Nell (Ashley Bell) is thought to be possessed, and the preacher doesn’t quite know what to believe anymore when he finds something seemingly otherworldly: Is a supernatural force afoot, or is it just this girl’s insanity talking?

It’s creepy (much more than that last “buzzworthy” horror film, Paranormal Activity), really well made and as funny as a movie can get about exorcising demons. And in a time when most movie special effects are all done on computer, only one digital effect exists in The Last Exorcism, which was revealed during a Q&A session with the filmmakers, including director Daniel Stamm and producer (and horror nut) Eli Roth.

Roth shared a story that as a kid he always thought he was going to be possessed by the devil, “until my mother told me Jews didn’t believe in the devil,” and he was asked by one person if he was concerned about the movie being compared to the 1968 classic Rosemary’s Baby. “Better that than Repossessed,” Roth reasons. “We hope it’s a Rosemary’s Baby for a new generation.” Read below for more highlights from yesterday’s Comic-Con schedule. (Source)