The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Yes folks, The Exorcism of Emily Rose is the latest to tread in the much esteemed footsteps of The Exorcist, one of the few really enjoyable horror shows to mix together Catholicism, exorcism, 360 degree neck rotations and a little bed bondage.

Now out on DVD, Emily Rose doesn’t have the class of the classic. For a start, it’s a mixed genre affair, churning together a courtroom drama with the usual ‘girl inhabited by demons’ storyline.

It’s okay with a pizza and some Italian raspberry cordial vin ordinaire, but its origins as a Screen Gems effort for Sony show up in the limited production values and the B picture cast.

The main problem is the genre crossing, which is a way to bring a fresh wrinkle to the story but which also dulls the edge of the horror routines. Instead of going full bore into the possession and the exorcism, the script by Scott Derrickson and Paul Harris Boardman regularly takes us to the courtroom drama for a review of the implications of what we’ve seen.

Emily (Jennfier Carpenter), we quickly learn, grows up in one of those Gothic weatherboards American film-makers love to film against mid western snow storms, in a very devout family, before heading off to college on a scholarship. Before you know it, the silly young thing has got herself possessed by demons, disrupting classes, seeing strange shapes around her, and generally alarming her few companions by screeching and howling at the darkness. There’s no idea of the how and why of the demons turning up – they just seem to think she’s a tasty young thing and possess her. Well what’s a demon to do, but devour the true believers?

So Emily heads back home, and things go from bad to worse. Now the doctors she’s been seeing diagnose a kind of epilepsy with psychotic overtones, and prescribe a particular drug, but the family calls in the parish priest (Tom Wilkinson), who firmly believes the demons are the real cause of all the trouble, and embarks on an exorcism.

Things don’t go too well – you get the usual funny voices speaking in unusual voices and ancient subtitled languages, dark eyes, wallpaper torn asunder, a thunderstorm or two, bed bondage (using pretty feeble cloth), wild horses, dramatic stabs of music and sound effects, slapping and cursing, and most other things Lucifer seems to dish out whenever there’s a demonic possession going down.

These events are reviewed in court before a judge (Mary Beth Hurt) and jury, with the prosecutor (Campbell Scott) arguing that it was a simple case of Emily giving up her medication, and getting the short end of the stick by going with the parish priest’s exorcism solution.

But then he’s a pious Methodist so what would he know? Tom Wilkinson knows the truth, and he gets to tell his side of the story at length in the court room, playing a tape recording of the actual goings on in the exorcism (conveniently provided late in court proceedings) and reading from a note by Emily which mentions how she was visited by the virgin Mary and how some stigmata she acquires reflects her spiritual understanding of earthly pain (or some such thing).

While the prosecutor (cutely called Ethan Thomas, a doubting Thomas) rails at this kind of spiritual raising of the bar, Laura Linney as the defence attorney forsakes her secular view of the world to give Father Tom as much time in the box as she can manage so the full, incredible (in every way) story can get told in detail.

Along the way, we learn she’s defended a killer (who kills again), likes a drink or two or three, and has a callous boss who acts just like a lawyer, always going on about partnerships and the church hierarchy. Despite claiming an agnostic, secular approach to the world, the cute, if fragile and vulnerable Linney, finds Father Tom’s views very convincing (in a none too subtle coda at the end, we note she’s forsaken the drink for herbal tea, and seems to have acquired some kind of spiritual insight).

In a way, it’s all jolly good fun, but it’s the kind of show which benefits from allowing secularists to shout at the screen in the home whenever sillinesses happen. This turns out to be on a pretty regular basis. The court procedurals are pure movie making (or maybe American courts are just run as ineptly as this), and the usual panoply of expert witnesses provide some comic relief – most notably a scientist/ anthropologist who starts to blather on about the fraudulent Carlos Castenada. Poor Campbell Scott gets shouted down for his attempts to silence her blather.

There is one major cheat, which has to be mentioned because it’s so dire, even though it involves a spoiler. Along the way we learn that there is a reluctant witness, a doctor called in by Father Tom to watch the exorcist going down, who produces the tape and then decides that he will give evidence. If you’re a betting person and haven’t seen the show yet, feel free to send me ten dollars if you reckon the good doctor will make it into the courtroom to testify. The jury verdict also feels like an each way bet, but fits the form of the creative team.

The performances are solid – Linney, Wilkinson and Campbell Scott all exude conviction even when the show is getting particularly silly. While she looks a little old for the role in places, John Carpenter’s daughter Jennifer Carpenter shows she’s good at doing a Linda Blair, twisting and contorting and hunching herself up in a way worthy of her Halloween genes. Unfortunately, the direction by co-writer Derrickson is inclined to be stolid. His coverage isn’t particularly inspiring, and the budget limits the amount of special effects.

But the real problem for some viewers will be the way we keep being dragged in and out of the exorcism by the court room drama, which undercuts the tension, credibility and involvement in the main game – the battle with that cunning demonic Lucifer and his five other pets.

It’s a wrinkle which freshens the material, but it comes at a price. It also doesn’t help that the we know up front that the possessed died – bummer, no salvation like the original classic– so that a kind of redemption has to be included to help provide an upper, perhaps as solace for spending a little too much time with the defence attorney, who disappointingly doesn’t get possessed - despite hints in that direction. Folks interested in this angle will have to reach into the remainder bins for that shocker The Entity.

Of course if you believe in demons and get scared when it’s Halloween or 3 am (the hour of the demons) or rejoice in 3pm as the time Christ rose from the dead, you’ll be glued to the screen (maybe this means you're an American, who believes Halloweenis a biblical event). However it might just be worthwhile if you think you’re getting possessed that you go along for a medical check up before calling in Father Tom.

The extras are okay, if limited, as you’d expect from this kind of Screen Gems, Canadian shot show, but it’s amusing in one featurette to hear the film-makers’ explaining how all they wanted to do was provoke interest in the secular v. spiritual debate, with an open conclusion and all kinds of evidence presented in the guise of entertainment. Come on guys, it’s a lay down misere for the possession team, with cards at the end confirming that Emily has a message for the world, and with her grave turning into a kind of unofficial shrine. Sounds more like you’re doing an intelligent design riff, preaching the controversy but hinting that maybe there’s just more to this funny old world than non Catholics could ever imagine.

Whatever. A few more shocks of a convincing kind might have helped unseat The Exorcist from its world champion title, but true believers in this genre will just have to pray for better luck with the next exorcism show.

 

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