bloggo ergo sum

This movie has been popular for over 20 years? What on earth for? It was a hair’s breadth away from being plain awful. The plot took about 45 minutes to develop into anything at all. The opening Iraq sequence was a complete bore, and didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything at all in the movie, until a 10-second sequence at the end, and even then it was not that significant.

It was supposed to be a horror film, but it wasn’t really very horrible, particularly if you already believe that spiritual warfare can manifest itself in the form of possession, as I do.

After plodding through the majority of the movie spent to convince us that yes, the little girl was actually possessed, they brought an “exorcist” in at the end of the movie. The last 10-20 minutes were about the attempted exorcism (which ultimately failed), and seemed very silly indeed. Why would a demon respond to recited prayers and hollow rituals? It seems to me that the catholic dogma presented in the movie would actually encourage one to ignore the moving of the holy spirit, rather than actually have any authority over an evil spirit.

The end was particularly abrubt, and left Father Karras’ story painfully incomplete (he was actually shaping up to be an interesting character), leaving the redheaded priest (Father Gamala, or some such?) standing there, looking at the spot where two men had died, as though it had some special meaning for him.

I may watch the sequels in hopes that they redeem the original story.