In 2005, I was 23 years old and had just gotten my degree in Engineering. I was ready to live life as a professional and become an independent adult when I got my first job. I wasn’t thinking much about writing about films. Films were an idea of fun and entertainment. My father was always insistent on considering films as more than mere vehicles of entertainment, and that certainly modeled how I saw some movies. A few essays I had played with, but I wasn’t keen on being analytical with art, much less one that represented an escape from my dull life as a “9 to 5” soldier. When it came to horror, my shallow views were prominent.
At that moment, a film entitled The Exorcism of Emily Rose was sure to drive masses to theaters and I was one of them. This was the first serious exorcism movie since William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. Opening night was a law I was happy to abide by. As time passed, my appreciation for the film was only through its soundtrack and the performances of the powerful Laura Linney and the versatile Tom Wilkinson. The director Scott Derrickson had followed his career, which included Sinister, a personal favorite of mine. However, The Exorcism of Emily Rose remained in the past as the horrific experience I had once had.
That is until a few days ago when the film appeared on one of my streaming services and I decided it was time to revisit a “modern horror classic” that was sure to give some chills (yes, I like to be spooked). Nevertheless, the film I saw in 2021 wasn’t the same I had seen in 2005. It was an absolutely different film of an entirely different genre. I was impressed. It wasn’t that the film had aged well or not. It’s just that what the film conveys with its thesis is something much more profound than the exploitative element it awoke back when it was originally released. The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a great example of how my father was right when he said “go beyond the screen.” I discovered things when I went beyond, and in that intimate conversation with the film, I found it’s much more than a demonic horror flick.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose tells the story of Erin Bruner (Laura Linney), a defense attorney who, upon seeking an ambitious spot in her firm, takes a very difficult case. She must defend Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson), a priest who’s been charged with homicide after the exorcism of teenage student Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter) goes haywire and Emily dies. Father Moore is accused of negligence and, through flashbacks, we come to know the events that transpired during Emily’s last days. Prosecutor Ethan Tomas (Campbell Scott) appeals to common sense and claims Emily’s cause of death could have been prevented if a “faith-based method” had not been used. As the trial and flashbacks progress, Emily’s “disease” remains a mystery. Even as the film comes to its finishing act, questions remain.
Unlike the title suggests, the film is not about an exorcism per se. It’s about a supposed exorcism in which a victim of demonic possession lost her life and the prosecution of a priest who was accused of manslaughter. Sure, the film’s horror artifacts are widely displayed in a script that insists on a real possession, and the foreboding feeling of those who couldn’t recognize the supernatural aspect of the events. Most of the film takes place in a courtroom, and it frames the story through the perspective of the defense attorney who starts admitting the strange happenings taking place around the trial. It’s a legal drama with excessive horror devices being ignited for the sake of placing the viewer in a dreadful setting. It’s a trap in the shape of a “serious horror” film. Do you remember in The Exorcist when the Devil inside Regan MacNeil refused to do something for Father Karras saying it was “a vulgar display of power?” This is what The Devil was referring to: the unnecessary confirmation of a presence just to believe in it. If The Exorcism of Emily Rose didn’t graphically display so much of its horror content, or constantly use the flashback artifact, what kind of film would it be? Would we still be horrified by it? We don’t need to see evil to know it’s there, just like Karras didn’t need Regan to move stuff to believe he was in the presence of a demonic entity. It’s believing in something just because you need a solution to a problem that requires recognizing an issue whose nature is not traditional.
Sometimes horror is a vast dimension where prime emotions and the consequences of cultural progress come together to make us react in certain ways. One of those “limbs” that’s present in horror is religion. Not as a practice, but as a fact. Perhaps the Bible didn’t include the sensational special effects, but that doesn’t mean the mere possibility of being possessed by evil doesn’t chill us to the bone. Personally, I believe it’s the reason why demonic horror is one of the most successful subgenres out there. In a general sense, we were educated to be afraid of the Devil. And our very own nature makes us sinners, followers of the one we should be afraid of.
The film’s powerful statement is best understood if we divide it into two settings or perspectives: Emily on one side and Father Moore on the other. Firstly, we have a girl who’s suffering from something alien, something she cannot understand, and something that’s fighting its way towards her extermination. Absolutely no one is able to know exactly what she’s feeling or going through. Her only go-to has been God, an invisible force strong enough to make her trust help may be on the way. As we witness Emily entering her full psychological meltdown, we start losing her. Her spirit keeps getting shattered and Emily goes further down a shapeless world of corruption. It’s not until the end, that fantastic closure in a dreamlike world, that we come to be in the presence of what’s left of her jarred spirit.
Then, on the other side, we have Father Moore, the priest who was in charge of the exorcism and the man accused of killing Emily. Even though he wasn’t the only one present during the exorcism, he’s the only one being scrutinized as the one enabled to make decisions. His fear is notable. But is he afraid of being sentenced? Is he already guilty of something else? Moore is a man whose doubt is a heavy burden he can’t get rid of, and it’s actually the main theme of the film’s secondary but relevant conflict. He doesn’t claim it, but it’s likely that he’s the one closer to Emily’s descent into the incomprehensible plane of a dispute between devotion and an emotional breakdown.
In this struggle to find the truth, The Exorcism of Emily Rose takes place as we, an advanced society with justice principles that should go beyond a reasonable doubt, judge someone whose ultimate intention was to help. Emily’s demise is not clear. Her final days are full of questions no one can answer. Considering that doubt, a system decides to use a man as the possible culprit because “it’s impossible that a demon can kill someone.” It simply cannot be accepted in an era of science, and the inevitable acknowledgment of mental health and its diseases. We are a logic-based culture and we live thinking there must be an explanation for everything. If something doesn’t fit logic, we become too afraid to admit there may be something we simply can’t explain. In the prosecutor’s rageful moments, we can almost see versions of ourselves who can’t recognize there are mysteries that can’t be solved. Emily’s mental condition is not explored in the film because the script doesn’t intend to delve into the possibility that Emily didn’t suffer a possession. At this point, the truth about her disease is simply not relevant, if there ever was one. What’s important is how a jury, Father Moore’s peers, sees the solution to Emily’s issues.
As members of a community, we suffer when we lose control. Emily’s first foray into a socially complex environment is risky. At least, that’s what her family thinks in terms of her completely normal blossoming. She believes she can do it, but only in the company of God. Her perception of threat is automatically linked to something religious. As if her unrecognized sins will be a cause for her reckoning. In this presentation of character, the trial is already pointing towards correct management by the priest: only he, a religious guide could help Emily when she strayed away from the path. However, this is what the movie wants us to set in our minds as it is about exorcism. It’s an undeniably effective solution to the harmless girl’s issue. Considering the film’s pivotal scene, it’s quite clear that Scott Derrickson is leading us to a battle between good and evil.
Father Moore is questioned during the trial about an affirmation he can’t prove whatsoever. During the defense attorney’s last resort in the trial, we get to Emily’s important statement about what she believes in. In this sequence, we learn about Emily’s final moments. It’s her personal rendition of her role in the events.
The priest begins reading a letter written by Emily after the horrific last rites of exorcism she had to endure. When she’s sleeping, she hears a voice call her name. As she steps out of her house following the calling, we see her enter a desolate field where only a dying tree can be seen. In this calm and enveloping atmosphere, Emily questions the very own foundations of faith: she faces a holy figure and doubts. As she learns the truth behind her ordeal, she chooses. She surrenders to her role on Earth; she’s a vessel of power and truth behind faith and devotion.
A further explanation on stigmata feels secondary in the scene because there’s something even more relevant than the supernatural hint appearing in the scene. Emily is a human being, and our humanity goes way beyond religion. The laws of religion have always manipulated us into being good. Father Moore says Emily accepted her fate. If we stay in a basic context, we could simply claim his phrase appeals to Emily being a saint. However, Moore doesn’t elevate Emily as something more than a girl suffering from a horrendous invasion. Her fate doesn’t have to be romanticized in any context. Emily has met death, and her acceptance of it, is simply a calm rendering of the necessary doubt of “why some of us must leave this realm so early.”
The film’s final act takes us through a closing statement, one in which we have to determine if Emily was in fact possessed or she was suffering from some illness we are failing to recognize. Here, Moore’s attorney implies the trial is not about facts, but about possibilities. Just like the film itself: It’s not about a horrible exorcism gone haywire, but about the possibility of Emily encountering her end in an atypical way, and a humble man trying to prevent this. Emily believed and Moore believed, and they both acted on this. This presentation of human will is a risky shakeup for the horror element that, at this point, remains as a backdrop.
Father Moore is not a bad man. He’s only a participant in a game of higher stakes than the ones imposed by fact. He’s a changed man, and he cannot go back to being the same man he was before. He’s looked into the darkness of the Devil himself and also that of the system, one that’s manipulated if it’s convenient for whoever’s trying to achieve justice. This system that doesn’t always rely on fact but on possibility. Yes, we know it as reasonable doubt. But mixing that with faith, the pliable element of truth reflected in this film, seems just dangerous.
The film’s divisive statement of final justice could feel lukewarm to some. However, its final scene is proof enough that the film’s legal conundrum was only incidental. The main theme is Emily and what she was a victim of. In a quiet scene, both Father Moore and Erin Bruner stand in front of Emily’s grave. They remain doubtful about their next steps in life. She has just rejected the top position in the firm, and he can’t go back to being the same faithful element of his universe. In the epitaph, a biblical sentence has been etched according to something Emily said to Father Moore in her last moments: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
These were probably Emily’s last words to the world. And they are signs of the humbleness the poor girl maintained as a motive until the end. She has seen the darkness and has met fate in a gruesome fashion. Even in death, she has taught everyone, even the agnostic Erin Bruner, there are some things that go beyond basic belief and proof. As Bruner puts away the boxes with information related to the case, she lies in bed staring at the effect of her faith being born, and her belief stepping into dark possibilities.
