The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Exorcism of Emily Rose's IMDB Page

I am Lucifer, The Devil in the flesh!

This movie is another one that carries with it the "based on a true story" tag. In this film we see the trial of Father Moore, a Catholic Priest on trial for the negligent homicide of a young college girl. Emily Rose was a 19 year old college student who becomes the victim of what some believe to be a demonic possession, and what others believe be some kind of epileptic psychosis. This film takes a lot from The Exorcist in the form of what a possessed girl looks like and does. On that same note Jennifer Carpenter does a fantastic job on both aspects of her role as the title character Emily Rose. The energy she puts into the sequences where she is under total demonic control (or seizing epileptic) is impressive. In order to tell the story of Emily Rose during the trial for her murder the filmmakers chose to include quite a few flashback sequences, which can hurt films but seems to work for this story. As with most larger budget Hollywood horror films, this one puts a strong emphasis on the dramatic with long dialog scenes where the "serious actors" can show why they are worth the big bucks. Final say on this one is that it probably won't ever be a classic, but there rarely are anymore in the horror genre. If you see this one on the bargain rack at your local video store or as a cheap, pre-played DVD go ahead and buy it. It's not a bad way to spend 2 hours on a rainy weekend afternoon.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose's Scores

Horror

3 skulls

Drama

3 (still looking for something to rank drama with, any suggestions would be appreciated)

BigBoyMovieReviews Grand Total

6

1408

1408's IMDB Page



It's an evil f@$%ing room.

John Cusack's portrayal of a man being driven mad by a twisted hotel room is nothing less than powerful in what is essentially a one man show with a small supporting cast. Something that too many horror films lack is good acting and not enough can be said about the life that is breathed into the characters of this tale. This film is based on a short story written by Stephen King about a haunted hotel room, but it's not haunted in the classical ghostly sense. The room itself poses very little physical threat. It tortures its victims, putting them through a highly personal version of hell and forcing them to take drastic measures to escape the insanity that the room inevitably brings. As a horror film this covers a wide array of creepy scaries and heebie jeebies. It's psychological,it's emotional, it's graphic, it's good. The special effects are very subtle and don't overwhelm the story allowing the audience to fully absorb the madness of 1408 (which equals thirteen and is on the thirteenth floor, oooh).



1408's Scores

Horror
4.5 skulls

Drama
4.5

BigBoyMovieReviews' Grand Total
9

Oh! The Horror (6)

Day 7: October 8, 2007

The Marsh

Claire Holloway is an author of children's stories who was adopted at age 8 and has little memory of her life before adoption other than the story that her parents were killed in a tragic car accident. She suffers from horrifying nightmares about a swamp and one day sees and advertisement for a town which strongly resembles those nightmares. So she decides to rent a house there while she works on her next book (which are usually kind of creepy). Once she moves into the house her nightmares intensify as she discovers she has a psychic connection to this house, which is haunted by a little girl and a pedophiliac ghost with multiple personalities. This is another story of "help the ghosts so that they can pass on blah blah". The acting in this film is often overly dramatic and a lot of the story ideas aren't very original. There are stolen bits from Poltergeist, An American Haunting, etc. The special effects in the film were pretty powerfully done, but the characters rarely responded to them as though they were actually frightened, which took away from the effect. This one gets 2.5 skulls on strength of special effects.



Day 8: October 9, 2007

Primeval

In the war torn and poverty stricken country of Burundi in Africa a world famous anthropologist is killed by a giant nine meter crocodile named Gustave. Across the globe in the the United States a television producer puts together a crack team to travel to Africa to cover this story AND capture the massive croc. What a crock. This team consists of a reporter who doesn't want to cover this story (played by Prison Break's Dominic Purcell, who can't seem to button any shirt past mid-chest), a wildlife reporter, a cameraman, a crocodile expert (a la Steve Irwin, but more of a tool), and a guide/poacher. According to the opening credits it's inspired by true events. Often stories that make this claim are generally about 70% BS, but claim it anyway to lend credibility to their story and trick gullible movie patrons into buying a ticket. What the focus of the story was is unclear as it went between how screwed up Africa is with its warlords and poverty, and the giant crocodile eating people at an alarming rate. Multiple times throughout the film it felt as though the story just cut scenes directly from Jurassic Park, but it was difficult to tell as the director opted for that annoying trend of rapid, slightly out of focus, and poorly framed shots during the action sequences in order to indicate the seriousness of the threat. This may have also been done because the special effects budget wasn't large enough to pay for the additional rendering and animating of a nine meter crocodile attacking everything in sight. This film gets a poor rating on the horror scale. 1 skull.

Oh! The Horror (4)

Day 5: October 5, 2007

Hannibal Rising

This film was pretty graphic and gory, but I don't know how IMDB can categorize it as horror. It's not. I find that any movie where I can sympathize with the villain/hero not to be scary. Anyway, this film tells the story of our dear friend Hannibal Lecter's rise to infamy. It begins on the eastern front of WWII and follows young Hannibal's life as a rich young boy, to an orphan in a Soviet orphanage, to his life in Paris with his Japanese widowed aunt, to his hunt for revenge against the men who introduced him to cannibalism. This movie was pretty well acted, well written, and overall well made, but on a horror scale I'm afraid that I have to give it a pretty low skull rating. 1 out of 5.



Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Imagine a world where the great slasher film villains of our time are not fictional characters created only for the silver screen. A world where slasher is a sick profession, meticulously planned and trained for. This is the world of Leslie Vernon, a man who hopes to be the next Jason Vorhees, Freddy Kruegger, or Michael Myers. This film took a very creative angle on the whole slasher genre. Leslie invites a group of grad students to film and document his planning and implementation of a mass murder. At times it was pretty funny, but when the time came to be a slasher Mr. Vernon did not disappoint. I really liked this one. It was a real breath of fresh air into a stagnating area of film. I give it 4 skulls.



Dead Silence

Don't scream! This movie starts off really well with some early gore and creepiness surrounding the mysterious arrival of a ventriloquist's dummy at the apartment of a young married couple. Generations ago there was a female ventriloquist from the couple's hometown with a massive collection of dolls. She was murdered and is now seeking revenge on the families of those responsible for her death. The story had a lot of promise, unfortunately it gets bogged down in a fair amount of overacting and a dragging plot line about the dark history of this woman and the town. There are some decent special effects sequences involving the creepy doll collection. Don't turn it off if you start watching it and get bored in the middle, there is a nice plot twist towards the end.
This one gets 2.5 skulls.



The Abandoned

Rural Russia, 1966. A pair of twins are found in the cab of a truck next to their brutally murdered mother. Forty years later those twins both arrive at the house in which they were born to be reunited with the horror that separated them all those years ago. This movie was good! I love a good haunted house film, and The Abandoned did not disappoint. There are flashbacks and zombie doppelgangers, places that suddenly transform or repair themselves. Did I mention that it's inescapable? Cheers to Nacho Cerda in his feature length directorial debut. The cinematography was beautifully done with great usage of colors and transitions. I give this one a high mark of 4.5 skulls.