7. The Exorcism of Emily Rose

So last night as I was planning to watch this, I was over at a friend's house until past 11. Then when I got home I had to take care of my dog, and before I knew it it was 1145 and I had a movie to watch. I can not describe to you what a challenge it was to put this movie in, alone, at midnight. I had seen Exorcism of Emily Rose before, but not since theaters as I really hadn't been able to bring myself to watch it again since then even though I own it. Same for Blair Witch. Movies that I know will scare the shit out of me are tough to watch on a Sunday afternoon, let alone in the middle of the fucking night. But despite my body's natural "Fuck that salad" response, I persevered, stuck the DVD in the machine and let it do its thing.

Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter) was a country girl who found her way into the city through a college scholarship. Abandoning the simple life she had with her family, Emily not only gets an education, but gets possessed by a very unhappy demon who totally terrorizes the shit out of her, forcing her to move back home into the care of her family. Once there, after numerous doctors and medications weren't ridding her of her problem, Emily and her family turned to religious intervention through an exorcism presided over by Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson).

We learn of Emily's death almost immediately after the credits stop playing, sending the rest of the movie to play out in two timelines: the timeline flashbacks from Emily's time in college leading up to her exorcism, and the timeline of events at a court preceding wherein the people are prosecuting Father Moore for negligent homicide, blaming Emily's death on his recommendation of discontinuing the use of the drug Gambutrol. Mixing a procedural drama with a supernatural thriller could have been a disaster, but instead both stories were incredibly gripping and having the exorcism be rationalized in a courtroom only added to its believability.

Everyone in this movie was amazing, but Jennifer Carpeter's performance as Emily is one of the best performances I've ever seen put to film. Not exaggerating. This girl was terrifying to a degree that will have you pulling whatever covers are around you up over your head to try to keep her from bursting through your screen and tearing you apart. She is so real and expressive that if you're able to fight your fear and keep watching you can't help but be incredibly impressed. Her lines are very few, but she spends a lot of time on screen being just the definition of scary. True veterans like co-stars Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson give great performances but are made to look like straight up n00bs by Carpenter and her yelling and eating spiders and just being grossly horrifying. I wish I had more words that would do her performance justice, but this will have to do.

The setting is a little bit unrealistic, but works nicely for the tone of the film. What I mean is that Emily either went to Creepytown University, or the director tipped the scales a little bit in favor of creating a scarier atmosphere. The college is by far the rainiest fucking college you've ever seen in your life. We check in on Emily there several times and every damn time it's pouring rain, not to mention that whoever ran the electric in her classrooms should be fired because they are the most poorly lit rooms ever.....but scary.

The way the story unfolds you wind up not being 100% sure who you believe until very late. Sure you want to believe that Emily was possessed and her death was caused by the demon residing in her, but although we are shown flashbacks involving Emily in her possessed stated, clearly plagued by an outside intruder, when the prosecution (total dick) presents their side of the case to the court, we're given little bits of what it would have looked like if more medically explained phenomena were happening, that look strikingly similar to the possession. It's an interesting dynamic that plays nicely with the thriller aspect.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose may not be the most front to back horrifying film on my list, but the way the story is presented coupled with the bone chilling performance by Jennifer Carpenter has made this movie one of my all time favorites. And by the way, the exorcism scene in the barn will haunt your fucking nightmares, but may be one of the best scenes in horror history.

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