Hey Exorcists--Exorcise This!

My soon-to-be-Sweet-Sixteen daughter spent the weekend with Girlfriend and myself. This was her first paternal visit in a couple of months. That's the way it goes every summer. She shuttles around on the family circuit--a week with my parents here, a week with my ex's parents there, then a week with my sister, then down the Jersey Shore with her mother and stepfather, etc.--so during the warm months I invariably get the short end of the visitation stick. I was awfully happy to finally see her again.

One of her requested activities was to see "The Exorcism of Emily Rose." I'm not much for the horror movie genre, but of course, in these circumstances, it's all about the kid. So daughter, girlfriend, and myself trooped off to the local googleplex on Saturday afternoon.

Readers, if you're considering shelling out your yankee dollars (or any other currency) to see this flick, my advice is--don't. And don't even bother with it on cable or DVD. Because IMHO it's a steamin' pile o' ponyloaf.

What's especially bad--and sad--about "TEER" is that while it sucks, it's not a bad movie per se. It's not the run-of-the-mill, teen-oriented slasher story with some sharp-instrument-wielding fiend chasing around a bunch of scantily clad girls. It has an interesting, even thoughtful premise, a fine cast, it's well-paced, the production values are high, and the script is written in a way that suggests that the writers actually presupposed at least a modest level of intelligence on the part of the audience. During the first few minutes I thought to myself, "LIFSOS, this might actually turn out to be a good movie."

But as it went on it sunk deeper and deeper into suckitude. I kept expecting "TEER" to somehow redeem itself, but it never did.

The movie is framed as a courtroom drama, with the horror bits in flashback. The story (WARNING: Spoilers ahead, though I won't reveal the ending just in case any LIFSOS readers disregard the above advice): Devout, hyper-wholesome Emily (the awesomely teethed Jennifer Carpenter) leaves the family farm to go to college in the Big City. There she experiences terrifying episodes that lead her to believe she's possessed by the devil. The docs chalk up these episodes to epilepsy with a side order of pyschosis and put her on meds. But she doesn't get better. She returns home and is put in the care of her parish priest (Colm Feore). Eventually she dies of malnutrition and apparently self-inflicted injuries. (Along the way there's the titular exorcism.) The priest is tried for criminal negligence or negligent homicide or whatever, with Campbell Scott (bizarrely sporting a Governor Thomas E. Dewey mustache) for the prosecution. The local archdiocese--trying to cover up the whole episode--engages a high-powered law firm, which assigns an ambitious junior partner (Laura Linney) to the defense.

As I said, the basic premise is thoughtful: Does demonic possession exist? Because if it does, and if Emily was indeed possessed, then the priest did all that he could and is not guilty; but if her condition was physiological, then he was remiss in not committing her to medical care, and therefore guilty as charged. It's the classic conflict between science and spirituality.

Oh wait, this is supposed to be a horror movie, right? Well, there are a few genuinely scary scenes--scary even to me, someone with a high tolerance for cinematic scariness. But they amount to maybe ten minutes out of a nearly two-hour movie.

My single biggest frustration with "TEER" was the lack of any old-skool horror-movie plot twist. As the movie got more and more pedantic and boring, I waited for the redeeming curveball--which never came.

Like, I expected the priest to ultimately be revealed as Satan himself. No joy. "TEER" makes a few lame stabs at surprise--e.g., a new witness appears suddenly! Wow, how original! And the Dark Lord begins harassing Laura Linney--mainly in the form of an early morning burning smell and a rattling door. Oooh, scary!

The closest thing to a Big Reveal comes when we learn that the Virgin Mary appeared to Emily in the midst of her agony and, basically, urged her to keep on sufferin'. In the Horror Movie Department, an encounter with the BVM isn't exactly like the moment in "Psycho" when we meet Norman Bates's mom . . .

I allowed my expectations to continue until the final scene of the movie, in which Feore and Linney stand in front of Emily's grave. I was SO HOPING a hand would pop put of the earth to drag them both down to Hell, a la "Carrie." But, again, no joy.

The movie also wastes a couple of prime opportunities to up the horror ante. In one scene, Linney is on the point of bailing on the case, but she takes a walk and discovers a locket with her initials in the snow, convincing her that she's "where she's supposed to be." But isn't a locket supposed to contain a picture? I sat through the rest of the movie certain that at the end, she'd open the locket . . . to reveal a photo of Emily Rose. Didn't happen.

Along the same lines, there's a scene where Linney is in the ladies' room of a bar. As she washes her hands, an androgynous figure in dark goth-style apparel, including a hood, washes her hands at the sink next to her. Fast-forward a few scenes, and we see Feore, in a flashback, under attack from evil spirits in his rectory. He flees outside and sees a dark, hooded figure, which he contends is the devil himself. In earlier scenes, he's tried to convince Linney of her vulnerability to to the Dark Lord.

So I was sure that at some point there'd be another flashback showing the mysterious figure in the restroom to be the Evil One. But No. Maybe we, the audience, are supposed to make the connection ourselves? Unfortunately, the restroom scene is shot in such a perfunctory way that this doesn't seem likely. I suspect it was merely a wardrobe malfunction.

The real jump-the-shark moment comes in the final courtroom scene. Scott--self-described as "a man of faith, but also a man of facts"--eviscerates the defense's case in a brilliant closing statement. I watched the scene thinking, " Uh huh, there's no way any jury consisting of people above retard level could reject this argument."

Then Linney makes her statement--a foggy farago about how while she doesn't know whether demons exist or not, the jurors must at least admit the POSSIBILITY that they do, and that whatever she does or does not know about possession, she is convinced that the priest is a good man . . . it's just like the scene in "Peter Pan" when Peter demands that the audience clap their hands to show that they DO believe in fairies in order to keep Tinkerbell alive.

The thing that ultimately nudges "TEER" from being just a disappointing movie into the territory of true suckitude, however, is a massive continuity lapse and/or logical disconnect.

In one of the early courtroom scenes, the college doc who first treated Emily testifies that she stopped taking Gambutrol (the anti-epilepsy drug) before it had a chance to build up in her system to an effective level.

But in a later courtroom scene, Linney brings in a witness (Shohreh Aghdashloo) who is supposed to be an expert on spirit possession "in many cultures," and who testifies that the priest's attempt at exorcism was ineffective precisely because Emily had TOO MUCH Gambutrol in her system.

Maybe it's just the editor in me, but how did the filmmakers allow this glaring contradiction to make it into the final cut?

Then, after the lame-ass ending, we're treated to several pre-credits title cards of exposition, telling us how the movie was based on "a true story" (of a German girl in the 1970s) and how her example has led many people to re-examine their lack of belief in "the realm of the spirits."

So we have a film that purports to be a horror movie but which is actually a courtroom procedural and which is ultimately a sort of Catholic propaganda piece.

Which is a shame, because, as I wrote earlier, it's a well-made, well-acted film--which unfortunately squanders all its good qualities and which will ultimately leave any thinking audience member not only disappointed but infuriated.

Finally, I must rant a little about how f*cking annoying the audience was during this showing. Yeah, I know, whining about how ill-behaved movie audiences are these days is as cliched as a comedian doing a routine about the differences between New York and LA or whatever. But still.

First of all, there were babies crying throughout the movie. What kind of f*cking parent brings a baby to this kind of movie? Beyond the possibility of the horror scenes imprinting on their wee developing consciousnesses and inculcating future traumas, it's just annoying to the rest of us.

Second, the cell phone thing. Despite the seventy-odd on-screen admonitions to turn off cell phones during the ridonkulous "pre-movie entertainment" and the twenty minutes worth of previews, phones kept going off throughout the movie, usually (as these things tend to happen) precisely at the moments when there was actually some suspense or otherwise compelling action onscreen. Seriously, one of these days I'm going to snap and get the s*it kicked out of me during a movie as I attempt to shove a ringing cell phone up some buff dude's ass.

Plus, it's no longer enough to just turn off one's ringer or set the phone to vibrate. Turn them off COMPLETELY, as*holes. During the movie I was continually distracted by little squares of light as people texted from their phones. Oh Jeez, come on. If you're living the kind of life that you can't go two hours without taking a call or texting, then you don't belong in a movie theater in Queens on a Saturday afternoon.

I have spoken.

The rest of the weekend, thankfully, was swell.

Comments

I really liked the movie...shoot, i even bought the dvd. But u are absolutly right! What a big contradiction. Thanks to you, all i have to do is flush the toilet on this movie. Cuz its a piece of sh*t !

[vegas promoter]

well being one who suffers from epilepsy I wish i could of got my hands on some of that gambitol so maybe i could of got possesed and didn't have to watch this crap....viva

[QueWmiyoko]

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