Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

2005
Directed by: Scott Derrickson
Written by: Paul Harris Boardman & Scott Derrickson
Starring: Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson and Campbell Scott.



Another one I've already seen.  I don't recall being overwhelmed with terror or anything like it but it's on the PVR so it's up next.

Nice opening scene from a production point of view - great camera work.
Hey - it's Debra from Dexter!
The score is good.  That's for damn sure.
AHHHHH - Christopher Young - the stone cold genius who gave us one of the all time great scores - Hellraiser!!!
Campbell Scott is here as well - never weak.

Okay - now I remember why this film left me wanting - it plays more like a courtroom drama than a horror movie.  I guess there's room for both in the world but if memory serves, this one attempted to merge the two and did neither that well.

Well now - scratching the walls and pulling out the hair has me mildly uncomfortable.  Too bad it took some 55 minutes to get there.

When all else fails pull out the shaky cam.  Ugh.

Alright - it was a better courtroom drama then I remembered - a courtroom drama set amongst the supernatural but it has little to offer the horror genre.  It's just not scary.
When we watch a movie we always have a few things we're looking for, whether we recognize it or not.  One of those things is the "this movie is over when..." moment.  In this movie we were looking for two such moments. One - Would the priest be found guilty and was Emily Rose really possessed by a demon?
The guilty/not guilty moment was a bit anticlimactic - and confusing, and the film makers decided to take the well travelled path of "allowing the audience" to decide the matter of the possession.  Come on guys - have some balls!!!  Take a stand!!!

I'm going to give this one 3 Bloody Eyes out of 5 - not for what it brought to the horror field but just as a movie in general - and damn that was a good score by Chris Young!


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