Of Wasted Potential and Bad Actors

The Movie: The Exorcism of Emily Rose, directed by Scott Derrickson
Recommendation: Me
Reason: True stories of this nature are always interesting.

The truth behind The Exorcism of Emily Rose is that it was stuffed with potential, from the directing to the script, but where the ball was dropped was the acting. Not Laura Linney-she was quite good, though a little bland. Pretty much everyone else was quite bad, which made an unfortunate mockery of a film with some decent potential. Here and there, you could spy spots of brilliance, such as the well-shot exorcism scene. However, there were also glaring moments of horrible, such as the multiple-cat vs. priest fight that interrupted the exorcism scene. Note to anyone who didn't watch the X-Files episode Teso dos Bichos: CATS ARE NOT SCARY.

The story that this movie was based on is quite interesting. It's also a little unfortunate. In a fitting 'sequel' to yesterday's Jesus Camp, Emily Rose's life seems to have been sacrificed to the beliefs she held so strongly. I strongly doubt the German church is quite as insane as the American Fundies.

As it happens, a German director has created a film titled Requiem that apparently made an effort to stick a little closer to the true story of Anneliese Michel. Just based on the Imdb comments, it looks like that film was quite good. The Exorcism of Emily Rose was alright. Not as good as it could have been, though.

-45/365 down, 320/365 to go