emilyrose
THE FLICK: As a sub-category of the horror genre, “exorcism” is a tough idea to franchise. Unlike other creature features, the act of possession doesn’t allow for much innovation or variation. The cinematic experience has essentially been limited to a girl tied to a bed spouting vile invectives at a team of holy men; a challenging scenario to re-invent even by the most creative screenwriter’s standards. This spiritual showdown, however, is inherently dramatic, and ever since the original Exorcist dozens of Hollywood producers have been circling the carcass, picking at the flesh of Friedkin and Blatty’s text, in an attempt to replicate its success. The Exorcism of Emily Rose combats the pitfalls of familiarity in a two clever ways. First and foremost, writer/director Scott Derrickson’s film presents itself as a courtroom drama with a screenplay that could have been condensed to fit quite nicely into any number of procedural TV shows in Neilsen’s top ten. And secondly, it plays the old “...