The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a collective and desperately horrible film which is full of boredom, followed my awful acting, and yet more boredom. There’s nothing wrong with it that hasn’t been done before, it just so happen since it emulates much of what has already been done, it fails badly to offer anything that is new.

Emily Rose is a young girl that is found dead, and for the death of which a Priest is arrested and jailed for her murder. Laura Linney, the absolute pits of female acting, takes the lead as the defendant for the priest who’s likely to face a long jail sentence.

He refuses to deny that Emily Rose was exorcised, or that she was possessed, instead simply offering to tell “Emily’s story”. Hudson finally succumbs, and partly due to spooky happenings turns the court case against the priest on it’s head, question not whether the priest killed Emily Rose, but whether he was exorcising her of demons.

For the most part, the film is dominated by a large extent with drawn out court scenes that bore the viewer rigid. It took around three attempts for my friend and I to watch the film, and what made it worse was that the film took itself incredibly seriously when it came to spooks that would fail to scare the most dedicated believe in ghosts or the creepy demons.

I guess part of what I didn’t like about the film was it’s insistent the Jesus saves, and the whole religious battering on the viewer. The film attempts to be tender but fails with it’s laborious court room antics, and the consistently predictable flashback to Emily’s distress.

At one point they try a much used bouncing camera technique used in music videos, and now seemingly made it’s way to two movies (Hostages being the other one as I recall) to add some danger, tension and fear. The problem lies in the fact that no matter what is attempted, it’s been done before, done better and with far more panache.

You could quite easily mark each scene and refer back to previous horror films, right back to The Exorcist, where much of it is ripped. The acting doesn’t help matters, with offering neither engagement nor drama or tension. What can a film that offers little horror offer for horror? Scratched walls, doors that creak open. Tension? Of course.

In the end there’s nothing interesting on offer The Exorxism of Emily Rose, and there’s nothing that hasn’t been offered to scare you. It’s like seeing the same red car drive past your window, every day, all year around. It never changes, and chances are that one or two people may be new to the red car, but in the end they will become tired of it to. It’s a crap analogy, one that suits this film.

Verdict: Horribly inadequate script, acting and spooks