The Exorcism of Annalise Michelle (The Exorcism of Emily Rose movie review)

 

Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

The Exorcism of Emily Rose was already added to my list of ‘watch later’ on Netflix, but I hadn't gotten around to seeing it until this course. Before starting the movie, I saw that it was based on a true story, so I looked into it. Normally with found footage movies, like Paranormal Activity, they say ‘based on a true story’, but aren’t actually. This one is. I found an in-depth article about the real Emily Rose, a girl named Annalise Michelle. I can't explain a lot of the parallels as eloquently as the article, but there were a few nice details I did notice in the movie after reading about the real case.

I appreciated the reference of the ‘123456’ praying up and down on her knees, because apparently that was a thing that Annalise Michelle did. For context, they say her cause of death was malnutrition because she starved herself (fasting) and spent all of her time on her knees praying. But here we get differences in the movie versus the actual case. The main modification is the verdicts of the case. In the movie, we get a very satisfying ending, ‘guilty but free’, whereas in real life everyone involved went to jail. But it’s based on a true story, not a documentary.

The best thing about this movie is that it leaves the audience with a question of what ‘truly happened’ to Emily Rose. Or does it? We see some very solid arguments and visual recreations of a scientific versus a paranormal case. No outright demons are shown, but the persuasion factor is there because of the point-of-view of the movie. It focuses on the mind of the defense attorney as she begins to believe the priest’s claims. A nice choice for the big screen, but in the real case there was no competition, the medical side won. In media, the idea of religious views as a defense works and made the doctors seem horrible (ex: forced sedation), but in real life science is more rational than the supernatural. We have separation of state and church.

Now for the movie to stand on it own. The pacing was excellent in how the evidence was presented, which is high praise because pacing is really easy to mess up. I loved the recurring images and parallels between the defense attorney, the priest, and Emily Rose, like the hallways, 3 am, smelling smoke, and the doors moving on their own. Speaking of the defense, the dialog from both attorneys was excellent and the acting in this movie was great. It may not have been a super scary ghost tale, but a lot of scenes left me unnerved and uncomfortable. Examples of this (and good acting) are when Emily Rose is having her muscles contract, when her voice changes, and her crazy eye movements. The whole spook factor to this movie can go to the acting and not so much to things like setting or music.

Overall: I would watch this movie again with friends, but probably not by myself since I already know what happens.

 

The Very, Very, Very Long Shining (The Shining book review)

The Shining by Stephen King

15 hours and 50 minutes for this audiobook. Almost 16 hours of Stephen King. Most other audiobooks for this course have been approximately 7-9 hours long. Now, this audiobook was enjoyable, but goodness it was longwinded.

I love that in the book we get more in depth with the characters of Danny and his Shining and Jack and his addiction. Getting to hear about Jack’s temper with breaking Danny’s arm and beating up his student were very interesting and overlooked in the movie. Not just hearing about Tony, but seeing the visions he shows Danny is something I greatly enjoy. But the book still isn’t perfect.

It feels like King is paid by the word. While I like the book better than the movie, there are definitely scenes that could be cut from the novel with little to no impact on the plot. I felt myself tuning out of the book in some places because the descriptions went on and on. I feel like the scene with the bees was a great way to show the Overlook Hotel as its own character, but it also was repetitive and long. The scene at the doctor was good for telling the parents not to worry about their son, but it lasted ages longer than needed. Wendy constantly thought about her issues with her mother. Now, I’ve only seen the movie once, but I got halfway through the book and feel like I still haven’t come across much that was seen in the movie outside of Dick Hallorann telling Danny about the shining (which by the way, that scene with them in the car is done so well in the book).

Speaking of differences between the movie and book, the hedges were amazing. I thought it was done well in both the movie and the book even though they were done differently. Danny cleverly stepping in his dads footprints in the snow in the movie was clever. But the hedge animals supposedly moving when he wasn’t looking at them was even better. Danny didn’t want to go play at the park, so Jack did instead, and then the hedges move. This was the one scene I didn’t mind King going into in-depth detail about, telling us about the dog hedge being a shepherd that could be trained to be vicious. These were details I enjoyed learning more about, leaving me questioning if the house had moved them or if he was hallucinating.

The movie is about Jack. The book is about Jack and Danny. Neither is about Wendy, the classic passive and whiny female in older books. She has a redemption arc in the end with the pantry, but overall she was a disappointment as the female representation. She wasn’t the main character, and was barely a side character. She was more there for her interactions with the other two.

The whole book is a not-subtle allegory for addiction. I knew that going in and wasn’t excited for it because so many ghost stories are allegories for some form of mental illness. But I did really enjoy this book. I’d never really read King before, but I would be open to read another of his books after this one. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pleasant.

Overall: the book was better than the movie.

Real Skeletons, Really Entertaining (Poltergeist movie review)

 

Poltergeist (1982)

Honestly, for a ghost movie, Poltergeist didn't really scare me. It leaned more heavily into the thriller category. I had forgotten, but this movie was meant to be in the horror genre as well, but I didn’t remember until the scene where Ryan pulled his face off in the mirror and chunks fell into the sink. What makes this movie scary was all of the things happening off set, like using real skeletons without telling the actors, lots of near death/actual death of actors, exorcisms on the sequels set, etc. This movie felt like a good comparison to The Amityville Horror in its multiple haunting tropes. We get lots of elements that feel like parodies of ghosts paired with stoned parents being super emotional.

Earlier in the movie I was cruising along and enjoying the moving chair, the talking TV, the tree monster, and the dog barking at the burn in the wall. I even enjoyed the idea that Carol Anne got pulled into the vortex and can only talk to her family through the TV. The vortex being in her closet was a little predictable, but I enjoyed it. But after the point when her parents called in the 'experts', that's when the movie started losing my interest. I know it's an old movie, but it became too over-the-top for me. I still can't believe that after everything the fictional family went through, they stayed another night in the house before heading to the hotel.

The special effects were very unconvincing, but given that the movie was made in 1982 that was to be expected. Now I'm a sucker for cheesy special effects, and my favorite movie is The Princess Bride (which has a man in a rat suit as a R.O.U.S- rats of unusual size). Because of that comparison, I found the special effects of the poltergeist face and tentacles very funny. Despite looking fake, I enjoyed them. Even the medium cleansing the house was fairly humorous. The fact that the old lady's face contrasted so much with her childlike voice was amazing.

But is this a poltergeist movie? The name suggests so, but does the movie? A poltergeist is defined as: a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed, and they are purportedly capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. We do get biting and objects being throw around, including the chairs moving and the children’s bedroom literally having everything float around in the air. So by the definition above, it is a poltergeist. But then again, we have multiple ghosts in the house, and the image we get from inside the closet seems more demonic than ghostly. When I think of poltergeists, my mind always goes to Peeves from Harry Potter, where I think of mischievous more than murderous. So in my mind, this movie was more a demonic force with other spirits than a poltergeist in itself.

Overall: the movie was hysterical, but maybe don’t show it to kids.

A Grave Way To Begin (Grave's End book review)

 

Grave's End: A True Ghost Story by Elaine Mercado

Despite being a short book, reading Grave’s End by Elaine Mercado felt like it lasted forever. I was hoping we’d get to action ¼ of the way through the book, or get to a climax by ½ way through (I read an e-book version and didn’t look at my progress very often). But every time I saw the chapter number was a disappointment. Not because the book was horrible, but because the book was boring.

The plot is a lot of the mom (and kids) being haunted by the paranormal, the mom repeating she wants to leave and is scared, her husband invalidating her, and then they cycle through those events again. She never leaves, just complains. She goes through phases of believing and doubting herself. I know this book is supposed to be based on a true story, so it makes sense that the plot is slow and long like it would be in real life. The author is the main character we follow, so it’s written like a autobiography. It makes sense she doesn’t leave her house because most people can’t just up and leave, especially with family. It follows the pattern of mental illness and questioning in how her mind is a broken record. But it was just so slow for a novel.

Then I finally hit the halfway point in the book. This is when everything changed from a story retelling to a novel. Finally we get a moving plot. Before the Halloween scene, the plot felt like it was stagnant, not moving forward. After her boss, lover, brother, and brother girlfriend validate her, the intensity of the ghosts pick up and with it so does the plot. We get increased ghost activity and the addiction of the ghost hunter and medium. There is finally a sense that everything is no longer a flat wishy-washy line of recurrence, that now there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is when I started enjoying the story and reading it like a fiend. Before then, it was nice seeing a realistic interpretation of a ghost story told from both the kids as believers, the mom as questioning, and the dad in denial. But after the halfway point I finally felt like I could read the rest of the book in one sitting. But it says something if 80% of the way into thr book the official medium still isn't here.

The moving action makes the rest of this better. But, if I were to compare Grave’s End to other books I’ve read from earlier classes, it would not stand up. This book gets better the farther in you get, but as a whole it is not as entertaining for me as a book about Russian myths. Maybe ghost stories and haunting aren’t for me. This is certainly much better than ghosts sexually assaulting ladies, but that isn’t hard to accomplish. I suppose I’m just finding out that I enjoy books that move externally rather than analyze internally for the majority of the pages.

Overall: Could be worse, but could definitely be better.

Amityville Ooze From Multiple Origins (The Amityville Horror book review)

 

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

‘Based on a True Story’: this book has it, Paranormal Activity did, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose does. However, only Emily Rose is actually based on a true story, and even that is a story adaptation and not a documentary. So, is The Amityville Horror actually a true tale? Honestly, that’s not what I care about. What matters is if this is a good haunting story or not, and the answer is about as (un)clear as the truth of the original tale.

One thing that was really nice about this book was that it didn’t shy away from the visceral bodily reactions characters had to the ghosts. Instead of only focusing on the mental toll the haunting took on the family, we also get the dad having horrifying diarrhea that’s exacerbated by holy water, and we get the priest who blessed the demonic house with open, bleeding, pussy sores on his hands. Now, I’m not normally a fan physical attacks in ghost books, but the constant return to the dad having to run to the bathroom was hilarious. It was probably meant more so to lean into the gross-out factor of some horror (and make for a better movie), but it served instead for some humor with your horror. I normally watch the movies for class with friends, but this is the first audiobook I’ve streamed. Let me tell you, for days now they have been making jokes that this is the best example of ‘ghost diarrhea’ in a book they’ve ever read. Also, it’s the only example of it. But the book did it’s job being memorable because days later they are still talking about it, so there’s something to be said for that.

But then the story becomes overwhelming with too many horror tropes. I was enjoying the ghosts and cold and sleepwalking possession, but then the author threw in a secret demonic worship lair, a pig man, and hoofprints in the snow, green ooze from the walls, and that’s when they lost me. Up until then, the book was very over the top, but kept me reading with an enjoyable ghost story. But as soon as they started throwing in demonic possession and saying the land was haunted even before the house, it became too much of a menagerie of different haunting tropes. Is this a traumatized spirit, a demon, a haunted house, or something else?

It’s plausible the book is a true retelling, but it’s also possible it was a ploy for publicity. If people can overlook so many horror tropes then they are gullible thinking this book is true. But I say that as a writer, not as a historian or a lawyer. But a lot of readers and viewers like the idea of story based on reality because it makes it more scary and plays on humans’ fear of the unknown. Humans fear the unknown but are also curious about it, so movies or books that give them that sense of something beyond their realm of possibility and control is enticing.

Overall: I would read another book rather than reread this, but it’s good to know where the phrase ‘the walls oozed green slime’ comes from.

I Watched The Others With Others (The Others movie review)

 

The Others (2001)

I streamed The Others with a bunch of my international friends. Even before watching it, two out of six of us had seen it already and highly recommended it (I had never seen it). After it ended, the rest of us were raving too. 

At the beginning, it became pretty clear quickly that there was some kind of haunting. Specific word choices foreshadowed to the ending of the family being ghosts, like the housekeeping family alluding to tuberculosis, the children talking (or avoiding talking) about the day their mom went mad, or the girl describing Victor's family 'viewing' the house. Yet, the all of these were done subtly enough to suspend belief until closer to the end of the film.

The point-of-view of the main character not realizing she was dead was great. It shows stages of grief and how she got caught in denial. Yet later she says she thought God had given her a second chance with her children, so she knew all along and so did the children. The movie kept you thinking throughout it, unsure of the source of the haunting events and who if anyone were really the ghosts.

This point-of-view a very strange way to show a movie since most hauntings are told from the perspective of the living humans. Plus, ghosts are generally seen as the ominous and destructive ones, like poltergeists. Leaning on the common destructive trope helps suspend belief for the viewer, especially when things like Victor opening the curtains occur. We assume he is trying to haunt the children and kill them because of their photosensitivity, but in actuality it is the children and mom that are the ghosts closing and locking doors on the living.

Despite adoring this movie, I thought the plot line with the father was pretty unnecessary. He died on the battlefield and should have stayed there since traumatic deaths generally don’t naturally pass on, they haunt where they were killed. But the father came to say goodbye to his family as if he could move on easily once he did that. Honestly, all that added nothing to the plot either. The only purpose he served was to get the mother back to the house from the fog, but she could have just gotten lost and kept ending up at the house until she gave up.

That being said, I had no other qualms with the movie. It kept me entertained through and through. It even kept my fiancé entertained, and he can be very picky with movies, especially with pacing. If you thought my review of Paranormal Activity was scathing, you should have heard his. But The Others he thoroughly enjoyed, much to my surprise given the older movie setting and vibe. The only issue my entourage had was confusion about whether the kids were actually photosensitive while alive or not.

Other feedback from my crew was: An interesting take on a trope and a very original idea. Instead of the house being haunted, they were the ones doing the haunting, but without realizing it. For once, the audience gets a haunted house movie that isn’t scary!

Overall: I would watch this again despite knowing the ending. It seems like the type of movie that you’d notice new little things each time you watch it again.