The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Review by Jason Donner

What would happen if Law & Order ran right into The Exorcist and they converged into some kind of ball that formed a new entertainment experience all together? Perhaps the answer to that query that no one in their right mind would actually ask is The Exorcism of Emily Rose, the movie that takes all of the horror of an exorcism and combines it with the horror of the American judicial system.

I know that if I were given a choice to face Satan or a lawyer, it would be a very tough choice for me.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose isn't really a movie about Emily Rose at all. Sure, she's a central plot point, but she's also dead at the beginning of the movie and her priest is on trial for negligent homicide for his role in her exorcism.

Through a series of flashbacks, we learn of Emily's terrifying ordeal of evil and the poor girl's demise in what is either a fight with the devil or a priest's insistence that she not get proper medical care.

Being that this is a horror movie and all (which it's not and I'll explain why later) the movie automatically takes the side of the priest and soon he and the lawyer chosen to defend him find themselves at war with an unbelieving public and an evil force that threatens to maybe even do more evil than the prosecution ever could.

I liked this movie. I thought it was provocative and fascinating and a welcome chance from your run of the mill horror movie. The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a movie that actually had some thought and heart placed into it and it's just tough to find a horror movie with those qualities anymore.

Of course, I don't consider this a horror movie mainly because it's really not that scary. It's a courtroom drama that just happens to revolve around a supernatural death. I really think that the studio botched the marketing of this movie by pushing it as something that it wasn't and by turning a lot of expectant horror buffs into instant anti-fans with torches and pitchforks.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose isn't quite as suspenseful and dramatic as it could be and there were several instances when the pacing was off just enough to throw several scenes into a boring quagmire of dull dialogue, but I liked it none the less.

Definitely not what I was expecting from this movie, but I like to be pleasantly surprised every now and then.

See it, but don't be surprised at the lack of flying pea soup and twisting heads. This isn't The Exorcist all over again, it's something more terrifying... The Exorcist with lawyers!