Despite what the film’s trailer might lead you to believe, “The Exorcism of Emily Rose” is not another dimly lit J-horror flick in the vein of “The Ring” and “The Grudge.” Sure, the titular character (played by talented newcomer Jennifer Carpenter) ultimately winds up a creepy looking, sun-deprived demon-girl with bad hair who frightens the bejesus outta everyone, but writer-director Scott Derrickson (“Hellraiser: Inferno”) squeezes the scary stuff — via flashback — into a typical courtroom drama. It’s an interesting marriage of genres, and one that pays off pretty well. As a horror flick, “Emily Rose” is downright chilling, especially during the obligatory “casting out the demons” sequence, but more often than not the action inside the halls of justice fails to match the intensity of the supernatural stuff. The movie is, to put it in development meeting pitch parlance, “The Exorcist” meets “A Few Good Men” … without all the A-listers and buzz cuts.
The always-interesting Laura Linney stars as Erin Bruner, a hotshot attorney who, having successfully defending a murderer in a high-profile case, has her sights set on a partnership at her firm. Opportunity arrives when she’s hired by the Catholic Archdiocese to represent a priest named Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson), on trial for the death of a 19-year-old girl who died in hideous fashion during a church-sanctioned exorcism. Erin’s an agnostic, but when things start going boo in the night she reexamines her position. In a packed courthouse presided over by Mary Beth Hurt, Erin squares off against a pious prosecutor played with almost comical earnestness by Campbell Scott. It’s cold hard facts versus faith-based phantasm, and you get the impression early on that reality doesn’t stand a chance. While the prosecution’s argument that Emily went all Linda Blair due to some sort of psychotic epilepsy might make slightly more sense than Linney’s demonic body-snatching defense, Derrickson steers us vigorously toward a conclusion plucked straight from the Bush Doctrine. (Rated PG-13 for thematic material, including intense/frightening sequences and disturbing images. Running time: 118 minutes)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 9, 2005. Read the original PDF.