HMRWS - Starring Abalom!

[Seil]

So welcome one again to Horror Movie Reviews With Seil! HMRWS for short - it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Well, this Labour Day, I've got an unexpected day off, so I've gone through my collection and picked up the newest horror movies I own. Why? Because while my love of vintage horror is well documented, most people want to hear about what's coming out now. Whether or not it's worth a rental. So today - that is, all of today - I'm going to be watching them sequentially. I'm also going to begin writing my reviews in a standard format, rather than the willy-nilly ways I've been writing them in the past. Does this mean that I'll go back and re-write my old reviews to incorporate the format change? No, because I'm lazy. Whoo!

The Cast Patrick Fabian as Rev. Cotton Marcus, Ashley Bell as Nell Sweetzer, Luis Herthum as Louis Sweetzer, Caleb Landry Jones as Caleb Sweetzer and Iris Bahr as Iris.

Notice something? Yeah, the characters are named after their actors. That's done in the vein of The Blair Witch Project, which, like the handheld camera style, helps the documentary feel.

The Plot Cotton Marcus is a reverend - a priest. He's done quite a lot of preaching, starting from about ten years old. His father was a reverend, and they've got a family history of exorcists. However, Marcus has begun to lose the faith. He's heard of exorcisms performed that have resulted in the deaths of children, so he contacts a small film crew and he sets out to discredit the practice.

Many people contact him, by email, mail and phone, so Marcus takes a letter at random and travels to the Sweetzer farm in Louisiana to give a behind the scenes look at exorcisms as a show rather than a rite. Unfortunately things get out of control.

Personal Opinion The film is really interesting in the beginning. Marcus talks to the small two-person crew about the ins and outs of exorcism, about what he does and why he does it, and it's actually pretty insightful - especially to someone like me, who's grown up into the Roman Catholic faith. He explains that exorcism is alive and well, and in some cases has resulted in deaths of children. Marcus explains that while his conscious prevents him from taking part in any exorcisms outside of "the last exorcism" he's going to perform for the cameras, he defends his previous attempts as

Originally Posted by Rev. Cotton Marcus

I would say that for the last couple of years, what I've been doing is doing what I've always been doing, which is delivering a service for a person who needs it in a way that they need it. I'm not saying I'm a doctor, but I am saying that I helped people from what ailed them. And what ailed them sometimes was the thought in their brain that they were possessed by a devil, and if I helped make that thought go away and they felt better, so be it.

Which is nearly exactly what the psychiatrists and the doctors in my favorite film, The Exorcist, say:

Originally Posted by Dr. Barringer

There is one outside chance for a cure. I think of it as shock treatment - as I said, it's a very outside chance... Have you ever heard of exorcism? Well, it's a stylized ritual in which the rabbi or the priest try to drive out the so-called invading spirit. It's been pretty much discarded these days except by the Catholics who keep it in the closet as a sort of an embarrassment, but uh, it has worked. In fact, although not for the reasons they think, of course. It's purely a force of suggestion. The victim's belief in possession is what helped cause it, so in that same way, a belief in the power of exorcism can make it disappear.

There's a strong focus on science versus superstition in this movie, and it leans very strongly toward science. Throughout the film, with the small questions posed to Marcus by the crew, and his own intuition, he believes that Nell, the possessed girl is very sick mentally, and needs a psychiatrist. As the film goes on, and we see Nell's behavior devolve, the filming leans strongly to the science side, presenting her as a psychotic.

And that's why the second half of the movie is terrible. Thank you, Eli Roth!

Final Opinion Since I know a lot of people are going to go "tl;dr," I'm going to include a Final Opinion in ever future review. Just Ctrl+F it, and you can see whether or not I give it a thumbs up. Because most people don't want to hear my overly long diatribes.

No, the movie does not get a recommendation. Like most other Eli Roth films. It's not great for jump scares, it's not great to throw on during a Halloween party or a sleep over, it's not great to watch by yourself because it's not scary. Which is a pretty monumental flaw. The argument here is that exorcisms are an archaic ritual that need to move aside in order for psychiatric medicine to take over. The entire movie presents Nell to be a sick young girl. It's the exact opposite of The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, where the argument was skewed in favor of belief versus scientific medicine.

That means that while you're maybe panicked or surprised for a few minutes, it doesn't carry the same fear or dread that other, better films can instill. And as the movie continues on, it just gets sillier and sillier, and the final five minutes are some of the most confusing cinematic moments you'll ever have. You will be glad to return this movie.

---------- Post added at 05:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:07 PM ----------

The thing about trying to do this whole "documentary, tape found in the woods, actors have the same names in the movie" thing is that it's ruined when people look one movie over on the shelf and see "PART II."