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Movie Monday: Taking the Last Exorcism

TheLastExorcism.jpgBox office boasting rights were too close to call Monday morning, what with two new PG-13 films, The Last Exorcism and Takers, separated by a mere $300,000. That’s less than the cast of Jersey Shore spends on tanners.

According to boxofficemojo.com’s early estimates, The Last Exorcism wound up on top, scaring up $21.3 million. The stylishly predictable caper flick Takers, playing on 700 fewer screens, snatched $21 million. Final figures, due out later today, will tell the tale. The Expendables and Eat Pray Love, movies which have walked hand-in-bloody-hand on the box office charts since their release earlier this month, slid to third and fourth place, respectively. Meanwhile, the much ballyhooed re-release of Avatar, what with its nine minutes of extra footage, barely cracked the top 12 with a $4 million take.

I was “lucky” enough to see both Exorcism and Takers, and both struck me as late-summer filler: Exorcism, plotted around a sham-artist exorcist who runs face-first into some apparent powers of darkness, had the most promising premise, but I didn’t think the movie pulled it off. And Takers, I thought, was just … dumb.