The Exorcism Of Emily Rose (2005) – Review

While it took me some time to spot it, it seems that there’s nothing that Scott Derrickson likes more than to take a typical horror trope and hotwire it up to some other genre to try and create something new. Whether he was spot welding the possession film to a police procedural for Deliver Me From Evil; a love story to a monster movie for The Gorge; or a nostalgic, coming of age flick with a ghostly serial killer plot in The Black Phone, you could argue that this habit of mixing and matching started when he chained a hard boiled detective story to Hellraiser: Inferno way back at the beginning of his career. However, his habit didn’t managed to fully express itself until 2005 when he fused an exorcism movie to the flank of a courtroom drama in order to give us The Exorcism Of Emily Rose.
To be fair, I can see why he did, because no subgenre of horror suffers more than lurking in the shadow of a past classic that any film featuring an exorcism at its core, but could Derrickson’s merging skills manage to produce an attempt that finally broke the Pazuzu-shaped mold?

Based on a supposedly true account of an exorcism going wrong, The Exorcism Of Emily Rose turns its attention to a court case pertaining to an apparent act of negligent homicide featuring Father Richard Moore, a Catholic diocesan priest who has been charged with the death of 19 year old Emily Rose. In an effort to minimise damage, the archdiocese wants Moore to plead guilty in order to get the case out of the courts as quickly as possible, but soon hotshot defence lawyer Erin Bruner finds that things won’t be quite that simple. Despite the wishes of his superiors, Moore is defiant that he plea not guilty and is more than happy for this all to go to trial so he can spread the word of what Emily went through and tell her story.
As the court case progresses, we get flashbacks of poor Emily as her condition worsens, but while we see her go though such terrifying indignities as horrific visions, tendon stretching contortions and randomly speaking more languages than Michael Fassbender, however when we snap back to the present we find the passionate prosecuter countering everything with medical explanations.
But as Erin starts experiencing strange occurrences of her own during her personal time, the main question remains: how exactly can you mount a serious legal defence when matters of religion are so heavily involved. Not only is it going to be virtually impossible to get a jury to buy into any exorcism, let alone a botched one, but you’re essentially dead in the water the second any skepticism rears it’s head. Nevertheless, Father Moore is adamant that they press on if only to get Emily’s side of the story out into the world; but as the verdict awaits, what could possibly count as a “good” verdict? A devout priest in jail, or a negligent man set free?

There’s no denying that Scott Derrickson’s attempt to add new layers to your average exorcism movie is desperately needed as the unavoidable unoriginality that stems from playing in the same sandbox as The Exorcist is an issue I’ve brought up many times in the past. However, while the film does succeed in mostly switching things up by adding the whole court aspect to the genre, it creates something of a different issue. Is The Exorcism Of Emily Rose a courtroom drama masquerading as a horror film, or is it a fright flick with delusions of grandeur that only succeeds in diluting it’s scares with copious legal stuff? Considering that Derrickson has made quite a sizable name for himself in horror, I’m prone to believe the latter is true, but that doesn’t mean that the film doesn’t have its virtues.
While the notion of taking the usual “the power of Christ compels you” stuff with a large slice of “objection, your honor” manages to put a fresh spin on the usual possession malarkey, it’s really the cast that manages to make most of the film land. Taking point is Laura Linney in the typically hungry later role who has her narrow, career hungry world view gradually softened by her experiences, but while the movie glosses over some aspects that might have fleshed her character out a bit more (inequality at work, for one) the actress is just too good to let a thinly sketched character slow her roll. Similarly, I genuinely believe that all mature actors gifted with a certain amount of gravitas should play at least one of two roles in their lifetime – either the head of the Impossible Mission Force or an exorcist and Tom Wilkinson has been lucky enough to do both.

Of course, while scenes of him waving a cross around while someone screams Latin at him over the sound of a wind machine are mostly limited to flashbacks, he radiates a genuine sense of righteousness in the courtroom – although I will say that it will probably cause issues with anyone lacking religion as it essentially glorifies someone related with fatally negligent behaviour. However, taking the cake is a career making turn from Jennifer Carpenter who probably puts in one of the most dedicated possessed performances that you’ve ever seen. While she goes through the motions of screaming, gurning, contorting and screaming some more but in a different pitch of voice, the levels of intensity she gets to manages to sell the horror just as much as the other actors sell the courtroom dramatics.
It’s just a shame that both halves of the film manage to mostly cancel each other out and the film also has some rather strange gaps that might have enriched the story. Maybe I’m a bit too used to the Conjuring movies focusing so much on the family dynamic, but the family and boyfriend of Emily Rose are left somewhat out in the cold despite giving appropriately traumatised testimony.
It’s things like this that hamstrings The Exorcism Of Emily Rose from being all that it can be and it ends up just being a good concept that could have used a few more scares and a bit more heart to carry it past being merely acceptable.

There’s obviously been better exorcism flicks, but there’s been worse too, and as Derrickson got further along in his career, he got far better at juggling the numerous genres and bringing out the best of both. However, at this stage, it feels like the filmmaker is straining to be a bit too respectable when he should maybe be pushing the horror more. As a result, a film that should have been starkly original merely feels a more middle of the road.
On the other hand, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about as the case should’ve blatently been thrown out of court since day one. After all, isn’t possession nine tenths of the law…?
🌟🌟🌟