The BD cover art for The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which was ported over from the film’s original theatrical poster, displays an eerie scene of the titular character walking in her nightgown toward a gnarled tree looming in the mist. What’s intriguing about the image is how ambiguous it is and, hence, readily opens itself up to different interpretations. My first impression was how Christ-like Emily Rose appears from behind - her face hidden behind locks of long hair, her nightgown resembling a man’s tunic, and the twisted tree looking like something right out of Gethsemane. A closer look might also suggest something slightly sinister about the very same image: the robed figure is actually the possessed girl searching desperately for salvation.

Like everything in this compelling courtroom-drama-meets-horror-film, I’m sure the signature image wasn’t just a fluke but an intentional attempt to rattle the viewer from the start. While initially impressed with The Exorcism of Emily Rose when I first viewed it on DVD a couple of years ago, the movie has only ripened with age and this second viewing left me even more unsettled and shaken. Like its obvious antecedent, The Exorcist, the movie is more about establishing a mood of dread and despair, and less about sudden shock scares or copious amounts of blood and effects. In reality, there’s very little we actually see during The Exorcism of Emily Rose that would suggest the presence of evil spirits or even a possessed girl, for that matter. The movie even eschews the intricate makeup work of someone like Dick Smith to connote the devil inside, instead relying on the intense performance of Jennifer Carpenter to sell the notion.

It’s a good twenty minutes into the film proper before we meet Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter) in the flesh, as it were, when the first of a series of flashbacks begins revealing her story as told through trial testimony. Father Moore (Tom Wilkinson), Emily’s priest, has been charged with negligence leading to her death. Apparently the victim of an exorcism-gone-wrong, Emily died believing she was possessed by demons. Of course, a team of medical experts is of the belief that Emily suffered from either epilepsy or a more serious case of psychosis – or a combination of both – and they prescribed medication to help keep her sudden spells and seizures under control. When that didn’t seem to work, however, Emily and her family turned to Father Moore to pursue an exorcism.

In an obvious nod to the recent Roman Catholic priest scandals, the archdiocese wants to avoid any further embarrassment during the high-profile trial and they hire hotshot Attorney Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) to defend Father Moore. Hoping for a swift verdict, the archdiocese wants the matter to go away and they don’t want Father Moore taking the stand in his own defense. But the stubborn Father Moore has other plans; he wants to testify and let the world know about what happened to Emily Rose, even if it means he’ll go to prison. Bruner, who professes to be an agnostic, initially doesn’t seem to care about the whole “good vs. evil” angle – she only wants to make sure her client is found not guilty.

But heading the prosecution team is Ethan Thomas (Campbell Scott), a self-professed “man of faith” who ironically doesn’t buy into Father Moore’s religious hokum or myths about casting out demons. Although he does claim to believe in God, he doesn’t hold the same regard for demons or devils and he hammers away at Father Moore who apparently convinced Emily to stop taking her prescribed medication in exchange for a spiritual healing. That ultimate and harrowing ritual finally takes place on Halloween – a night when demons are more susceptible to the rites, as Father Moore explained – in the presence of Father Moore, Emily’s boyfriend Jason, and her father. But things go horribly wrong and the exorcism ritual is never completed.

In some ways, The Exorcism of Emily Rose raises more questions than it answers, but I found it refreshing how the balance of belief shifted during the trial between the doubting Thomas and the more open-minded Bruner. While the film does play a little fast and loose with its conclusion, I still found it quite compelling and thrilling. There are some nice, little details that I thought were handled quite well – like a credible explanation for why strange things always occur at 3:00 AM, an hour denoted as the demons’ inversion of 3:00 PM when Christ is said to have died on the cross. And some of the morphing demonic faces that Emily sees as her condition worsens are quite startling.

But without the fine performances of Linney, Wilkinson, Scott, and Carpenter, the film would not have been nearly as successful as it is. They all bring a level of confidence and authority to their roles and they play it perfectly down the middle, neither underplaying nor going over-the-top. Carpenter, in particular, pretty much has a thankless role and only gets to smile and appear happy during one early scene when she finds out she’s received a full college scholarship. The rest of the time she spends screaming, growling, contorting, and writhing in agony. While it may not be the type of role that earns awards or accolades, it certainly shows a level of commitment to the project that deserves kudos, and the results speak for themselves. There are moments when I found her more frightening than the makeup-ladened Linda Blair in The Exorcist… and that’s a hard act to follow.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s original 2.40:1 aspect ratio is presented in a very strong and detailed high definition transfer using the AVC video CODEC. Although the film skews a bit dark at times, the image quality remains remarkably consistent and well-defined. I noticed an impressive level of detail in the opening credit sequence when we see a snippet of that indelible BD cover image and the camera zooms in to a section of barbed-wire fence with blood dripping from one of the metal barbs. Color balance and saturation are very good throughout and the black levels are all deep and consistent. While the transfer doesn’t boast that three-dimensional look of some of the superior high-definition titles, it does offer a natural and film-like presentation that always looks clean, clear, and concise. Even the really darker scenes still offer an impressive amount of detail. I could detect a slight reflection of light in Erin Bruner’s eyes during a sequence when she’s frightened by a noise in her apartment and in Emily Rose’s eyes as the chilling exorcism ritual begins at the end. There are no signs of compression artifacts or edge halos. Overall, a very good and film-like video presentation.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The lossless English TrueHD 5.1 track is quite good, as well, although not as impressive as its video counterpart. While I found myself a bit disappointed during the first few scenes when the rear channels and subwoofer seemed completely inactive, once the first real possession flashback kicked in, all six channels came alive with an enveloping cascade of sound. By design, the bulk of the courtroom scenes, which account for a major portion of the film’s running time, are pretty pedestrian in the sound department, with most of the dialogue coming loud and clear through the center channel and only occasional echo effects bleeding through to the surrounds. Christopher Young’s wonderfully moody and slowly-building score also gets some nice play through the front channels during the opening title sequence, but it really blares through and complements that first harrowing possession scene when Emily Rose seems to be under attack by some invisible presence in her dorm room. A driving backbeat assault thumps through the subwoofer while percussive stings echo through the surrounds. Overall, a very good and unnerving audio presentation.

In addition to the English TrueHD 5.1 track, the disc also offers TrueHD 5.1 options of French, Spanish, Portuguese and Thai. The optional subtitles are in English SDH, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, and Indonesian.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

This BD offers a nice selection of supplementary material that helps “tell Emily Rose’s story,” as Father Moore was wont to say. The bonus section begins with an interesting and informative feature-length commentary track by co-writer/director Scott Derrickson. Derrickson explains how the movie was essentially based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, a German girl who was thought to alternately be either possessed or the victim of a neurological disorder, much like Emily Rose. Unlike the film version, however, both the priest who performed the exorcism and Michel’s parents were charged with causing her death. Derrickson picked up an out-of-print book about the case and then found himself obsessed with reading hundreds of similar books about actual exorcisms. His comments are thoughtful and always to the point, and he gives a lot of credit for the success of the film to his fine cast. He also notes how they often tried not to go for the big scare or special-effects moment, which is one of the reasons the film worked so well for me. Although his only previous feature credit was the direct-to-video Hellraiser: Inferno, after listening to him here, I look forward to his forthcoming remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still and his involvement with an announced remake of The Birds.

The first of three in-depth featurettes begins with Genesis of the Story (19:47), in which Derrickson and his co-writer/producer Paul Harris Boardman delve deeper into their desire to capture this little-known real-life exorcism tale on film. Both explain how they did exhaustive research into the Roman Catholic ritual and how they poured over countless photographs, recordings and even videotapes of actual exorcisms before penning the script. While some of this is interesting, much of it is recycled from the commentary track.

The Casting the Movie featurette (12:23) is a bit more interesting in detailing how Derrickson really didn’t have any specific actors in mind while writing the script, but he was very fortunate to get stellar people like Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson, and Campbell Scott to play the pivotal roles. Most of them also chime in on what drew them to the project and how it was working with Derrickson.

Last is the Visual Design featurette (18:58) that examines some of the special effects work and the overall look and production design of the film. While I admire the time and effort that went into some of the film’s impressive lighting and design work, this featurette goes on a bit too long.

There’s also a lone deleted scene (2:41) that can be viewed with or without director Scott Derrickson’s commentary. The pointless scene shows Attorney Erin Bruner pick up a man at the local bar only to fend off his advances after she invites him back to her apartment. Given its dead pacing and Linney’s surprisingly subpar performance here, it was wisely left on the cutting room floor.

In addition to Sony’s standard Blu-Ray promo and the original theatrical trailer for The Exorcism of Emily Rose, the BD also includes the trailers for 21 and Starship Troopers 3: Marauder.

The 122-minute film is divided into sixteen chapters.

Final Thoughts

The Exorcism of Emily Rose is another fine example of old-school horror filmmaking that doesn’t rely on sudden shocks or relentless bloodletting to induce chills. It’s a measured and often manipulative retelling of the classic innocent-girl-possessed tale that really works in much the same way that William Friedkin’s The Exorcist did over thirty years ago. And like that classic, it managed to creep me out. With a very good video and audio presentation and a healthy and informative collection of bonus material, this BD is highly recommended.


Here’s a note about the apparent duplicate Buy Guide. Our I.T. people are still hard at work on a large project and have not yet had the time to modify the underlying site database formatting code to accommodate the new 0-to-10 rating scales. So until they do, for HD on disc, I’ll insert this note and a Buy Guide at the end of the review text and leave the conventional 0-to-5 Buy Guide blank.