Directed By Joshua John Miller

Starring – Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington

The Plot – A troubled actor (Crowe) begins to exhibit a disruptive behavior while shooting a horror film. His estranged daughter (Simpkins) wonders if he’s slipping back into his past addictions or if there’s something more sinister at play.

Rated R for adult language, some violent content, sexual references and brief drug use

The Exorcism | Official Trailer (HD) | Vertical (youtube.com)

POSITIVES

Though eventually consumed by its own indulgence of uninspiring cliches, there is a surprising foundation to ‘The Exorcism’ that at the very least made the first half of the movie an interesting delve into past traumas, especially with elements of art-imitating life littered casually throughout the engagement. For starters, the film within a film is an obvious remake of 1973’s iconic ‘The Exorcist’, and this affords us meaningful commentary in everything from the smothering nature of an embellishing director, played by Adam Goldberg, who definitely emulated William Friedkin’s well-documented abuse of his cast on that 73′ film, but beyond that an introspective look into the industry of uninspired remakes that seemingly hatch every five minutes. It’s clear that Miller has a great disdain for these inferior successors, even if ‘The Exorcism’ can’t escape the realities of it being doomed to be one, and the usage of cheesy make-up and practical effects inside of this fictitious production only further highlights how he and his audience have come to see these lifeless imitators. Considering the film revolves around cursed real life productions in cinematic history, it’s able to use the gimmick as an intriguing urban legend of sorts for this fictional encompassing, crafting creativity for legitimacy in ways that I bought at least initially to the film’s favor. Likewise, the clever parallel between documented alcoholism and paranormal entities does surmise elements of atmospheric ambiguity that tease and titillate just what we see taking shape with Crowe’s character, which does inscribe complexity to the character’s contextual comeback, all the while challenging audiences to interpret if in fact what they’re seeing in terror is something paranormal or genetic by definition. In addition, the film does have an abundance of heart as a result of the on-screen relationship between father and daughter, which effortlessly conveys meaning into their rocky pasts with everything from the way she calls him by his name, instead of father, as well as the peeled onions of backstory exposition, which can flourish terrifically from two performances in Crowe and Simpkins, who really give their all to their deliveries. Crowe brings an underlining sadness and longing to the role that vividly articulates the haunted humanity hanging in the balance of his character’s many counterproductive decisions, and likewise Simpkins’ ability to conjure facially conveying fright and tenderness to such overwhelming circumstances makes her a necessity in a movie where the stakes aren’t always firmly defined, the darker and deeper that we persist throughout this story. In addition to these two, it was also nice to see some against type casting in Chloe Bailey and David Hyde Pierce, who might not be given the most in material, but do expand upon their range with roles that push them to the physical and emotional limits with a film unlike anything that either of them have ever faced.

NEGATIVES

In the same year that ‘Late Night with the Devil’ practically reinvented possession films, ‘The Exorcism’ retracts that sentiment two steps backward, with an execution filled to the brim with genre tropes that deduce its scare factor towards feeling dead on arrival. Aside from the film containing this blandly morose presentation, where everything is captured either too darkly to properly register visual cues to the audience, or greyly dull in its graphical color scheme, the film’s chill factors produce minimal effort towards generating meaningful scares, and instead rely on predictably placed and audibly boisterous jump scares to sell their impact. This is tragic not only for the talent and aforementioned foundation that goes wasted in the many unique touches that Joshua John Miller actually supplants to the occasion, but also hypocritical in that it proves it is among the herd of derivative drones that it feverishly mocks on-screen, without learning a thing about what to stay away from in tow. Because the film’s first half pertains to more of the psychological, in the decaying relationship between father and daughter, while the inferior second half submits to over-the-top shameless indulgences among the loud noises, blinking lights, and swelling orchestral score, it often feels like the vision of two entirely different directors, or maybe even one of them being studio intrusion, which we will eventually learn with time. In addition to a total lack of atmospheric frights, most of this impressive ensemble goes wasted, but primarily Worthington, Bailey, Pierce, and an uncredited cameo from Samantha Mathis, who appears in two scenes, with little to no dialogue to justify her appearance. The most tragic of these notable instances is either Worthington, who receives two scenes for his third billing on the credits, or certainly Bailey, who after groundbreaking turns last year in ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘The Color Purple’ is deduced to being a secondary love interest for Simpkins character, who is essentially only used to unsubtly dig deeper at the issues between father and daughter that the movie impatiently chooses to pry at with a crowbar. That lack of subtlety carries over to many of the arcs and corresponding developments throughout the engagement, as essentially the script and its 88 minute run time continuously races to the next big trailer moment with the patience and presence as a musical montage sequence, often undercutting the meaning of their intended explorations. The worst of these is easily the lack of mystery associated with the protagonist’s alcoholism versus unforeseen possession, to which the movie quite literally shows its hand early. Because the audience knows what’s going on long before the characters do, it makes many of their responses illogically silly and remarkably convenient by the things they casually overlook and rub off of their shoulders, only as a means of progressing to the next set piece. One such instance pertains to a possessed character jumping out of the window of an apartment building, which is evidently high enough to see a city skyline, yet they survive the fall without ever explaining what happened because of it. Part of this could certainly be written off as bad writing, as the script feels like an idea at best, and conflicting visions at worst, but I think the strange consistency of the editing is most at fault here, with some scenes of explanation and even pay-off feel noticeably missing from the finished product, and in turn leading to so many of the logic gaps that make this film feel like it’s persisting subconsciously in the mind of someone who pieced together their own possession script after watching literally every other one they’ve ever seen. Finally, I do have some unresolved questions with the film’s ending, as the undefined placement of one particular character, and the complete change in look of another, makes this feel like an obligational reshoot, long after production has finished, with about as much satisfaction in closure as you would expect from a movie this continuously disjointed. It does leave some things up to the interpretation of the audience, but isn’t the most gratifying in terms of rewarding for audience patience, resulting in the exclamation point to the film’s duration that I knew was coming with so much disappointment.

OVERALL
‘The Exorcism’ does have some compelling ingredients that should’ve elicited a fresh taste to the overcrowded possession subgenre, but its indulgence of familiar tropes and scare-free futility proves it as another of the many derivative successors that it unapologetically mocks. While the power of Crowe compels an engaging character exploration during the film’s superior first half, the second half completely abandons its thematic impulses pertaining to abuse and forgiveness, in favor of formulaic execution, leaving another shell of a successor without any soul for the taking.

My Grade: 4/10 or D-