Blackwater Valley Exorcism isn't a very good movie, but I'll be danged if it didn't cram more crazy plot twists into it than any exorcism movie I've ever seen. Every character in this film is so eaten up with his or her own personal demons that it's a wonder a bona fide demon could ever find room to get in and actually possess one of them in the first place. As we all know, a demon will exploit any guilt and weakness in those who dare attempt to exorcise him; well, this demon is sitting on a mountain of ammunition once the callers start calling.

Some of you are undoubtedly wondering if the film is scary. Personally, I have never seen anything scary about The Exorcist, but I'm pretty confident in saying Blackwater Valley Exorcism isn't going to scare a living soul the least little bit. It will make you laugh, but it won't scare you. As for my fellow Jeffrey Combs fans, you should already be used to Combs making cameo appearances in lousy horror films. In most cases, he's the only thing the film has going for it. In this case, however -- and I really hate to say this -- he turns in a terrible performance. He was so bad that I didn't even realize it was him at the time.

Blackwater Valley is obviously a hotbed of dysfunctional people. You would think that poor demon-possessed Isabelle (Kristin Erickson) would be worse off than anyone else, but that is far from the case. Her father Eli (Randy Colton) is all kinds of surly, carries a grudge like a sledgehammer, and is borderline psychotic with jealousy and suspicion of a wife he probably doesn't even love. There's Miguel (Del Zamora), the farmhand with a hidden past whose diagnosis of Isabelle as possessed pretty much gets the whole exorcism ball rolling. Then there's the priest (Cameron Daddo), the most-screwed up character of all. It is most ironic that the family turns to him for help because a previous relationship he had with Isabelle's sister has left plenty of bad blood between him and the family. Let's just say Father Jacob didn't take a traditional path toward the priesthood. He also happens to look a lot like Neil Diamond.

Just picture this exorcism party: a priest with a really sordid past who just turned down a chance to study exorcism at the Vatican because he didn't believe in possession; a cowardly Mexican farmhand who repudiated his faith years earlier; Isabelle's sister Claire (Madison Taylor), who is, quite inexplicably, still all hot and bothered over Father Jacob; and a local veterinarian who just proved that a syringe full of horse tranquilizer won't kill a man. Many a dark secret is revealed before this night is through -- heck, you almost forget about poor possessed Isabelle as a full-fledged soap opera erupts inside the house.

I like the story's unconventional twists and turns, as they do distinguish this particular film from the pack of Exorcist clones that have been produced over the years, but the film's mixed bag of surprises just isn't enough to offset all of the inane dialogue and hysterically bad acting in the film. It's impossible to take this film seriously, especially with Randy Colton turning in a performance worthy of the Hayden Christensen bad acting award of the year. An exorcism movie with very little in the way of dark atmosphere and no capacity for frightening the viewer just isn't going to get the job done. Blackwater Valley Exorcism is good for a few laughs, but that's about it.