Exorcism

Writer/Director William Baker has succeeded in taking all of the subtleties and all of the subtext out of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist and making a movie about it. The result? A film so incredibly shallow that it plays more like a comedy than a serious film, and even graded on the comedic scale this joke fails as it lacks anything resembling a punch line.

Where the Exorcist foreshadows with imagery in the opening Iraq sequence, Exorcism opts for a face-to-face confrontation where Mr. Lansing finds himself standing before a trio of demons who spell out their intentions … after they provide a taunting voice over in the previous scene where they make him crash his car, putting him into a coma … which comes after a mysterious nurse, played by Eileen Dietz, makes a few disturbing, somewhat prophetic, comments to Mrs. Lansing … I don't remember if that comes before or after said nurse introduces herself as Legion. But you get the idea.

The cast introduces the art of overacting to epic proportions as every character in the film wears their deepest inner monologues on their shirt sleeves while the camera dollies in to give said inner thoughts their own close-ups. Every sentence requires punctuations through a full assortment of head movement, facial expressions, and gestures. The guiltiest party? Mrs Lansing who appears to channel the spirit of a bobble-head doll.

Although this, in truth, compliments the writing that deals with over-exposing the exposition on an equally epic level. Take, for example, father Lansing who not once, not twice, not three times, but at least half a dozen times hears the advice that maybe he shouldn't rush into this exorcism alone. "What am I a choir boy?" he vehemently responds with a brooding sigh and passive glare that reveals the end of the film approximately 80 minutes in advanced.

Guys, you just need to penetrate balsa-wood. Put the industrial strength nail gun away, already.

Baker has also taken the liberty of embellishing his "Exorcist for Idiots" movie with his own dumbed down morality play, delivered on the intellectual level of "how to tie your shoes." The film constantly presents complete superstitious BS juxtaposed to an over-simplified lecture on the fundamentals of the Christian faith to the point that it sounds more like a spoof than a sincere lecture. When the film links the worst of crimes to demonic possession and goes so far as to state, "most people in prisons need exorcisms not jail time" I rolled my eyes, shook my head, and sighed. Even to my Christian ears, this is a ridiculous line of thought that gives Christianity a bad name. Don't even get me started on the scene where the demons toss around one of the punks and encourage him to drink and do drugs and indulge in other sins.

On a technical level, Exorcism's low-budget invites even more criticism in all departments not because the film possesses (no pun) a small budget, rather because it makes no effort to overcome it. Where directors like Sam Raimi and John Carpenter infused their early work with energy and creativity and delivered some classic low-budget films (Evil Dead II, Escape from New York), Baker hits a brick wall and throws in the towel. And a low budget film that lacks creativity also lacks charm.

The film looks as though the battle against the budget ended when everything made it to the screen without regard to how the pieces of the puzzle all fit together. The score, the editing, the cinematography, the special effects – all are there and accounted for – but are they right for the film? Does it flow? Is there a sense of timing? The answer is no. Especially where visual effects are concerned. A police detective talks on his cell phone amidst a crime scene that is curiously shot from a single uninteresting and uninformative angle. The detective describes how brutal this murder apparently was while standing still in the frame As if this static shot of a motionless man talking on the phone wasn't painful enough, the conversation ends and he continues to stand there so several seconds later the ghost of a little girl can appear and walk through him before he finally leaves the frame.

In conclusion, the film fails on such an epic level that its purpose becomes blurred, dare I say indistinguishable? Through its shallow production values, and even shallower writing, the only deep and provocative question left to ask after viewing Exorcism is "Was this supposed to be dramatic or comedic?"

This is a truly abysmal film. I saw it on the "D-Movie Channel" in Phuket, Thailand. Since every movie that is shown on the channel is awful, I'm beginning to think that the channel title reflects the quality of their offerings. My guess is that very few people go to Phuket to watch TV, and the channel rents the most awful stuff cheaply. Everything in the movie has been exploited before, and it's done even worse here. Instead of a teen-aged girl with a spinning head, you have a puffy-haired, middle-aged man whose breath sets people on fire. Avoid this movie at all costs. Rather than betting that a movie you've never heard of might be good, you should watch "The Exorcist" again.

Usually I give a film at least a few scenes before praising it or condemning it, but I must say this one was horrid from start to finish. If this is the best Mr. Baker can do perhaps he should take up a job in road construction or something. The acting was lousy on everyones part. Many seemed to be reading poorly written cue cards. The dialogue was stomach wrenching. Mr Baker must have had a typewriter on set cranking out lines as they were being filmed. The only redeeming feature of this film (at least to the male viewers) was the eye candy provided by Nichole Dionne. Alas, that was not enough to salvage any facsimile of entertainment from this reel of wasted cellulose because the "actress" Karen Knotts was stuck to her like a conjoined twin with a performance that should have won her an anti-Oscar. As for the rest of the cast. It would seem that they agreed to do the film if their photos were placed in the IMDb. Unless they put them there themselves and cheated themselves out of the cost of a Waffle House breakfast. Mr. Baker also played casting director in this little field trip selecting them as well, proving that he truly has no place in the industry. Period. One thousand words could not present the injustices of this film. So, I will wrap up with, avoid at all costs.

Love horror movies. Although this one had the potential to be one, it's not. This film is very thematic and I almost felt like I was in church. There are some good effects and it did have its moments but the writing needed a second look. I've seen some of these faces before but couldn't remember from where which is why I looked it up here. Now I remember these guys. That's the dude from 'Rocky'! The filming was good, I don't know the budget but it looked pretty good to me. It looks like it was shot on film, which means it had some money. So I don't understand how this script did not get redrafted and reworked. Next time I would hope they would work a lot more on their script before going into production. Not too bad for a first try.

The 1.0 voting is for the demons' make-up, which was okay, and for the evil nurse, who was the only actress in this dud.

Black and latino thugs break into the house of a whitebread, Christian family. When one of the thugs is visited by an angel, they run away, leaving the perfectly coiffed dad's-jeans father and his virginal blonde daughter in shakes. Meanwhile, the mother is ready to leave the hospital where she's treated for who-cares-what affliction when an eeee-vil nurse warns her of impending doom.

The thugs start to experience evil possession but are saved by a black minister that teaches exorcism-101 to the aforementioned blonde daughter, as you do. Then the whitebread dad admits to his brain-dead wife that he once joined a Satanic cult to obtain wealth and now he fears that his whole family is cursed. That's before he's possessed by the Devil and refuses to leave his bed.

This is a horror film a written by a "7th Heaven" writer, but with less subtlety. It looks like an educational film, with the same absence of style, drama-class rejects cast and a patronizing message. Previous reviewers stated that they thought it was a comedy, which I can relate to. The acting and dialogue are so atrocious that it borderlines on parody. The mother in particular is a hoot, with her xanaxed smile even when the evil nurse clutches the rosary beads from her hands.

This goes highly recommended to bad-movie lovers. My eyes were glued to the screen, mesmerized by the nullity of everything, but still I couldn't turn it off. It's fascinating that someone, somewhere financed this.