Why I love Movies - (The Exorcism of Emily Rose Edition)

"Possession is 9/10 of the law"

The Exorcism of Emily Rose or as I like to call it, The Explanation of Emily Rose is based on a true story of which there is ample information to be found online. Suffice to say, it's a tragic event which I think we can all agree should have been handled in a very different way. I'll leave it at that for the actual events and focus on the movie from here on in.

Laura Linney, Campbell Scott, Jennifer Carpenter and Tom Wilkinson would grace any movie and it is rare that a horror movie can boast such a quality cast. Director Scott Derrickson must have felt like all his birthdays had come together to have such talented people to work with.

The movie opens with ominous shots of a house where clearly some awful shit has gone down. Derrickson deserves credit for imbuing the movie with a sense of dread using some beautiful lighting and deft camera work along the way. As it happens Father Moore (Wilkinson) has carried out an exorcism on Emily and tragically the 19 year old girl has died.

Soon after we meet lawyer, Erin Bruner who has just got a client who may be a killer off on a technicality but Erin is ambitious and wants to be a partner at her firm so she doesn't care, yet. Her boss, Karl (Colm Feore) is delighted with her work and dangles a partnership in front of her if she'll defend Father Moore who has been arrested for negligent homicide. Bruner is an atheist and hates the idea but with that partnership so tangible, she agrees.

The prosecutor, Ethan Thomas (Campbell Scott) is a true believer. He's a church goer but doesn't believe in demonic possession. He truly believes father Moore is responsible for the death of Emily and is seeking a maximum sentence. A quick meeting between the two lawyers sets the tone for the battle ahead. Thomas has the facts on his side, Bruner has her work cut out for her.

The movie plays out in three ways. Part courtroom drama, part flashback showing you the events leading up to Emily's untimely death and some "real time" events mostly involving Bruner and father Moore. I should state at this point that I went to see this movie as a horror fan so I was looking forward to all manner of supernatural shenanigans and while I got plenty of well executed moments of horror, I ended up being far more interested in the battle between Thomas and Bruner in the courtroom. It's tightly scripted with hardly any filler moments.

Thomas has one huge advantage over Bruner and it is this simple truth: religion does not belong in law making. If you apply your religious beliefs to common sense law making, you are Sharia Law. Even if your religion is (apparently) more tolerant, it has no place in a court of law. This is why Bruner cannot win this fight... and she struggles to find a way to make any sort of impact. She clearly has sympathy for father Moore but can't find a way to convey his decency to the jury. Partially because Thomas gives a very effective opening statement and partially because the lawyer in her refuses to embrace the theatrics that might win over the jury. She brings in an "expert" to convince us that possession and exorcism are part of the "human experience" but Thomas destroys the witness and brings in an expert of his own, Dr. Briggs played by the wonderfully smarmy Henry Czerny. He is convinced Emily was suffering from "psychotic epileptic disorder" and should have been forced fed her meds and food to live. He asserts the religious solution, ie the exorcism directly led to her death and that a combination of medicine and force feeding would have saved her life. Bruner falls into his trap when she asks, "so you'd feed her against her will?" the response is damning, "to save her life, yes".

Bruner knows she needs to change her tactics and she also knows (though it never comes up in the movie) that the jury will certainly have some religious people and if she can put on an effective show, she might convince enough of them to win this case. She's also been taken in by the charming father Moore. I feel this character is a genuinely decent guy who did what he thought was right and Bruner is starting to wonder if he isn't telling the truth.

He tells her how he saw Emily's experience and he talks about his own terrifying run ins with a hooded figure. He's very convincing. Furthermore Emily's boyfriend, Jason (Joshua Close) comes across as entirely sane and speaks of some truly horrifying moments spent with Emily. In one she begs him not to leave her and as he says himself, "I never did, I stayed with her until the end." See below:

There comes a point in the movie where Bruner decides to go spiritual. A key witness, a doctor who believes Emily was possessed, is killed "Omen style". Bruner has been rocked by the fact that the guy she got off on the technicality has killed again and she is starting to wonder what the fuck she's doing with her life. The partnership offered to her starts to mean less and less and despite being told by her boss that she'd lose her job if she allows Moore to testify she does what she feels is right rather than what is right for her career. So, she takes the shackles off and with nothing left to lose she lets father Moore take the stand. In fairness to the priest he doesn't seem bothered by the fact that this will almost certainly mean incarceration. He says he just wants to tell Emily's story. So he plays a tape recording of the Exorcism and we, the audience, are treated to the actual events. It begins in the house but things quickly turn to shit and Emily ends up hysterical in the barn. Father Moore continues the ritual and Emily, it seems, has been possessed by six demons. Father Moore doesn't back down from them and a dialogue of sorts begins. It is a superb scene, Jennifer Carpenter is so utterly committed to the scene that I started to feel very uncomfortable when I first saw it.

Actually, let's talk about Jennifer Carpenter's acting in this movie. She is incredible. The physical aspect of her performance is absolutely staggering. She bends and twists herself into all manner of shapes. In the quiet moments she shows an innocence which is essential to the movie. You believe the witnesses who say she was a wonderful person. The performance, for me at least, was worthy of an academy award nomination but this is horror and horror doesn't get the love at the major award shows. That's a real shame. It's not that there's a lot of amazing performances in horror but there are some and this is certainly one of them. It won a Scream award and an MTV award.

Back to the movie, father Moore testifies and does well considering his position. Ethan Thomas watches and listens like a spider watching its prey in the web. Thomas drops the ball here as he comes across as kind of a dick, mocking the priest for his beliefs. I found this odd given the lawyer is a practicing catholic but maybe he just got caught up in the moment. He absolutely rips the defense to shreds but he is heavy handed and he makes Moore look sympathetic.

As the movie comes into its final moments there is one scene that I'm completely torn on. Father Moore reads a letter, written by Emily, to the court. Moore's voice narrates as the scene begins. In the scene, Emily, by now on death's door, manages to sneak out of the house and into the nearby field. There she collapses by a tree and, pretty violently it must be said, her soul leaves her body. There she speaks to "Holy Mary". You see her having a conversation with the iconic catholic figure but you never see Mary. Moore reads the letter and the conversation is revealed. Mary has given Emily the option of dying where she is and going with Mary (presumably to heaven) or she can stay as she is and die in the clutches of six demons. Why? Well, if she sees this through to the end, she'll help convince people that there is a spirit realm etc.

I have problems with this scene. I'm not talking about my beliefs here. I'm happy to watch a movie like this and not let my personal belief system spoil my enjoyment of it. Or think of it like this, if I can walk into Lord of the Rings and get drawn in by that fantasy, I can just as easily get drawn in by this one. So, as stated, Mary asks Emily stay possessed to convince people that there's a spirit realm or to die and go with her there and then. Emily takes the martyr route, deciding that she'd rather endure further suffering to help bring religion to the masses. Firstly, people just believe in religion. For no rhyme or reason whatsoever and without the benefit of proof, people just believe. A kid enduring further torture by six demons won't change that. Secondly, there's a theory put forth in the movie that the exorcism failed because Emily was taking medicine which shut down the part of her brain that would be open to receiving the benefit of an exorcism. Let's follow this madness to its conclusion. If Mary wanted Emily to remain possessed to her end, surely nothing would have worked, rendering everyone trying to help Emily, including father Moore, pointless.

What I do like about the scene is the the way Thomas pays attention to the details and uses them to his advantage. Moore has stated that Emily got the stigmata after seeing Mary. Thomas points out that the field is surrounded by a barbwire fence and Emily simply cut herself on the fence on her way into the field. There is blood on the barbwire to back this up. I also love the way the scene looks. It's so haunting, almost other-worldly. A still from the scene is used as the main poster of the movie (shown at the top of this blog) and it is one of my favourite movie posters. I also like the hint at the power Mary has at her disposal. I assume Emily's outer body experience is something Mary orchestrates which is cool enough but the violence of the soul coming out of and going back into Emily's body is quite scary. Nice touch as you do get the feeling that if she wanted to Mary could handle this whole six demon thing with minimum fuss.

And so the stories have been told and the closing statements are upon us. Bruner gives a solid closing. She's played the only card she could, the theatrical one and she's played it beautifully. There's nothing more to add except variations on "I can't say for sure if these things are real or not" which is a great ploy for the reasonable doubt argument. It's a decent closer but not as rousing as you'd expect.

Surprisingly enough the rousing closing speech comes from Ethan Thomas who absolutely wipes the floor with Bruner. I don't know if it was intentional as you did feel the tide turning toward Bruner during father Moore's testimony and maybe they felt they needed to bring things back toward common sense in order to add to the suspense as we wait for the verdict. Or maybe it was just Campbell Scott being amazing, I don't know but he is brilliant here. Simply pointing out the reality of the situation is damning to Bruner's defense and she does look a forlorn figure sitting there while he rips the theatrical efforts of the defense apart.

And so we come to the verdict and oddly enough both sides win. Thomas gets his guilty verdict which was all he could do at his end but Bruner has also done her job and has reached the "believers" in the jury who decide the priest should have his sentence reduced to time served. The judge agrees. The movie closes with father Moore and Bruner at Emily's grave. It is sad and it hit me right in the face when I first watched the movie. Afterwards when discussing the movie with the person I first saw it with we both agreed that Dr. Briggs was right, if Emily had been force fed and treated by professionals she'd probably still be alive.

Once you've seen this movie the question of whether or not she was possessed is also an obvious topic. Let's be clear, the exorcism scene in this movie is terrific. As are the Emily in possessed mode scenes. I found them to be expertly shot, acted and edited. Credit again to Derrickson and Jennifer Carpenter for producing the goods in a world where we've all seen "The Exorcist". What is surprising though is the way the movie offers up common sense explanations for what you initially feel must be supernatural occurrences. It's to the movies credit that it does this and Campbell Scott's deft performance as the "well actually here's what really happened" guy is top drawer because he could have come across as a kind of kill joy but he never does.

So there's something for everybody here. Religious people will get the God versus Devil thing expertly delivered by a talented director who knows exactly what's required to make a movie of this ilk. He is helped by a talented cast who commit to the material, not least by Jennifer Carpenter's spectacular performance. Those of us who look for less creative and more rational ways to explain our existence are also catered for in a very reasoned analysis of what exactly is wrong with someone who seems to be possessed. The real trick here, however, is the attraction for people who maybe aren't big on horror but love a good courtroom drama. This is an excellent one with Linney and Scott both reveling in their respective roles.

I really feel this was the last good exorcism movie. There's been a slew of them since all pretty terrible. Even Derrickson's Deliver Us From Evil is by the numbers and more drivel than devil. I've avoided the inevitable comparison to The Exorcist up to now. Obviously The Exorcist is a better movie,  I mean it's the fucking Exorcist. But this one dares to delve a littler deeper, asking more questions of the audience and for a horror movie, that can only be applauded.

Cheers,

G.