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11 Nov 2005

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Based on true events, The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a spine-chilling tale of demonic possession. Agnostics will walk out of the cinema convinced of larger forces at work. Oh, haven't you heard? The door bitch at the club has just been replaced.

Director: Scott Derrickson

Starring: Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, Jennifer Carpenter, Scott Campbell, Shohreh Aghdashloo

After Linda Blair and her inversed stair-climbing acrobatics, and crucifix-al masturbation, an indelible stigmata is burned into the collective memory of Horror fans and any subsequent films dealing with demonic possessions - and especially those that involve hot chicks the likes of Jennifer Carpenter - would unwittingly fall into comparison with their predecessor. But though Linda Blair may be the original pea-soup spewing demonic brat, Emily Rose is a far more intense deliverance which combines gritty courtroom drama while dispensing with the art-house pretensions of that which has been mistakenly tagged "the scariest movie ever made."

Laura Linney (top) plays a lawyer assigned to defend a Catholic priest (played by Wilkinson, second from the bottom) against charges of negligent homicide of a nineteen year-old student, Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter) who was supposed to have been suffering from demonic possession.
Ok, so The Exorcist had a pre-methadone malfunctioned Ellen Burstyn - last seen making desperate attempts to escape a monster fridge in Requiem for a Dream - and the great Swede actor Max Von Sydow as the avuncular priest. And it won a couple of Oscars. But this was in 1970s - Cher hasn't taken home her little gold man, and everything was shocking.

It is truly to the film's credit that in this post-Passion times, Emily Rose still manages to tease out our deepest insecurities, or in the case of some hypochondria, concerning Catholicistic redemption and our fears of the invisible dark forces at work - and I'm not talking about club scene bitcheries. For that, God knows how many Hail Mary one needs for salvation. But then again, one could always purchase an air ticket for Amsterdam

But back to the story! Laura Linney plays a lawyer assigned to defend a Catholic priest (an ever reliable Tom Wilkinson) against charges of negligent homicide of a nineteen year-old who was supposed to have been suffering from demonic possession. An intriguing courtroom drama thus ensues which pits evangelical faith against the clinical logic of psychiatric sciences. Through prosecution (led by a moustached Thomas Campbell) and defence testimony, we learn how Emily grew up in a devout Catholic family and then headed off to some unnamed university on a scholarship. And it was there where strange things started happening to her. Quite out of the blue, I must add. First, it was the strange burning smells. Soon came the more violent visitations that assaulted her while she slept. And then she began to see people turning into demons. Doctor's prescriptions did nothing to dispel these hallucinatory figments and Emily's condition grew from worse to worst. Finally, at their wits' end, she and her family decided to place her recovery in the hands of Father Moore (Wilkinson).

Watch out for a brief appearance by Iranian cinematic great Shohreh Aghdashloo (The House of Sand and Fog) as a paranormal anthropologist called to defend Father Moore at the witness stand. With three Oscar-nominees - Linney, Wilkinson and Aghdashloo - wielding their consummate acting chops, the film is a sustained and all-rounded Method powerhouse. By B-Grade Horror standard that is. But then again, yours truly do have reservations calling Emily Rose a straight-out Horror. Perhaps it is due to the fact that its premise, in the intelligent direction of Scott Derrickson, really set the mind working while shocking the heart into palpitations with its dread-inducing atmospherics and timely scares. Incidentally, Scott Derrickson was also the co-writer of Wim Wender's latest film, Land of Plenty, which was critically acclaimed at Cannes where it debuted.

What the film does, to its credit, is the intelligent juxtaposition of enactments of Emily's demonic possession with the same enactments explicating the manifestations through a scientific point of view. You might think it's so Ripley's Believe It or Not but I beg to differ. It does much more than provide cheap scares in its exploration of that which can possibly be explicated by science and logic, and that which is truly unknown, and for which only faith alone can serve as a calmative for understanding. Emily Rose invites viewers into the realm of the spiritual while reminding that science and logic still have their places in the scheme of things.

The most amazing part of the film has to be the performance of newcomer Jennifer Carpenter as the title character of Emily Rose. She delivers a committed performance that makes the sufferings of her character painfully real, without the usual melodramatic fanfare. Her transformation from an innocent girl-next-door into a devil-driven walking corpse of a person (dark eye bags and maimed figure et al) disturbs by its utter lack of OTT make-up wizardry. This imports Emily's possession with a powerful sense of authenticity, and hence ups its realism factor by quite a few notches. It is also nerve wrecking to watch Emily suffer as her body unwittingly contorts into various ligament-splitting dimensions under the visitations of her demons. Carpenter's performance is one that induces fear in the viewers while eliciting their empathy, which is quite unusual for a Horror film. Most Horror films are just tragicomedies that fall into the category because they utterly and tragically fail to disguise their comedic and ludic elements. This one is truly tragic and emotionally affecting because it convinces not merely by scare tactics alone, but by also appealing to one's intellect.

A note to any potential detractors: don't forget to say your prayers before bed tonight. It might just be your last.

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