The Exorcism of Emily Rose

This week I watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a movie I had highly anticipated the release of because I totally dig all those religious horror movies. The Omen, the Exorcist, whatever. Well…not Constantine. But I did like Devil’s Advocate. Anyway, I expected great things from this movie “based on a true story” about poor Emily Rose, the victim of possession by not one, but SIX evil demons.

Where to begin, where to begin. How about the beginning? And the fact that nothing interesting happens for the first 20 minutes. I don’t know about you, but I like my horror movies to have immediate head spinning and devil vomit. Then we begin to realize that just like little Linda Blair’s character in the original Exorcist, Emily is a sweet, endearing child with a nun-like religious conviction (Catholic of course, because only Catholic people are possessed by demons), infallible obedience and all the hope in the world. Played by Jennifer Carpenter , who really turns looking ugly and scary into an art. Moving on, insert dedicated Priest here. Tom Wilkinson (Father Moore) does a mediocre job of carrying what was such terribly written dialogue that it made One Life to Live look like Shakespeare.

Next, let me cover another main character, Father Moore’s attorney, Erin Bruner, played by Laura Linney . In case you don’t know, Laura Linney played the happy apple pie wife of Jim Carrey in the Truman Show. All grins and dimples, I had a hard time seeing her in a serious role, and an internal religious crisis. But whatever, maybe its just me.

An attorney? you may ask. Yes. Because what drives the final nail into the coffin of a movie that advertises itself as a horror movie is that its not. It’s a bad Exorcist rip-off being brutally raped by a terrible episode of Law & Order. Its twists and turns are seen from so far away that they may as well have been the sun on the horizon. Yah, the doctor thing? If you didn’t know how it was going to turn out than shame on you, stop seeing movies, because you’re the reason they’re allowed to suck. The only relief I found was that they didn’t make a big deal out of the Priest taking oath before going to the witness stand. If they had offered a dramatic presentation of him saying, “So help me god” I would have probably turned the movie off completely. Long story short, there’s maybe 10 total minutes of anything minutely scary, and then the ending makes you go, “Blah blah blah. Just roll the credits.”

I give this movie the Joon rating of "Huh…” because while it didn’t make me necessarily sleep, I’m glad I didn’t see it in the theater or pay to rent it. Just know going into it that you will pretty much know every single time they stray from what realistically happened and you’ll roll your eyes so many times they’ll start to ache.