review

The Exorcism of Emily Rose: Awake at 3 AM?

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I originally saw The Exorcism of Emily Rose at a movie theater in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I recall it vividly because of how suggestible I apparently was.

 

In the film, clocks stop at 3 AM and strange events, allegedly demonic in origin, happen at this time. A priest in the movie explains that 3 AM is the Devil’s Hour, mocking the Holy Trinity. I’d never heard of this idea that a specific hour of the day was more evil than another.

 

The movie was based upon the true story of Anneliese Michel, a German woman who died after an exorcism in the 1970s. For me, seeing “based on a true story” usually amps up the thrills. This one was no different; The Exorcism of Emily Rose scared the bejesus out of me.

 

For a few months (yes, MONTHS) after watching the movie, I would wake out of a sound sleep at 3 AM. Prior to the movie, I didn’t wake at that hour, or any hour until my alarm went off. Night after night, I would wake at 3 AM and usually feel concerned that something nefarious was afoot.

 

One night, I realized I’d never had any concerns about waking in the night at any particular time prior to viewing this particular scary movie. I’d never had any reason to be scared when it was 3 AM. Thinking it through, I became aware that I’d taken this idea from a piece of entertainment and let it shake me up! I couldn’t believe how suggestible I was, how open to receive this movie tidbit as fact.

 

It was my own suggestibility that I considered when I watched The Exorcism of Emily Rose last week, and that awareness gave me a new slant on the suggestibility of the main character. Emily comes from a highly religious home and goes off to college. She goes to a dance and even canoodles a bit her boyfriend.

 

Imagine how seriously someone might believe they had sinned if they had come from such a devout household. How does she rationalize what she’s done? How does she come to terms with her choices when she feels such shame and guilt?

 

The only acceptable answer that her she and her loved ones could get onboard with: demonic influences. Emily wasn’t acting of her own freewill. She was possessed!

 

Could a person convince themselves that they are filled with demons? I don’t see why not. I, a typically way too logical adult, managed to be convinced for a short time that 3 AM was chock full of evil simply by watching a film. It seems reasonable that someone from a strict upbringing could convince themselves that the Devil made them dance and smooch.

 

I have no way of knowing if Anneliese, the woman that inspired the film, was impressionable enough to believe being possessed was the only explanation for her thoughts or behaviors. Maybe Anneliese had an untreated mental illness. Maybe Anneliese was living with the results of a traumatic brain injury. Or maybe, just maybe, she really was possessed by something otherworldly? You can text me your thoughts when you find yourself awake at 3 AM.

Stir of Echoes: thoughts on the movie

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“I never wanted to be famous,” Tom tells his wife Maggie in the beginning of the film Stir of Echoes. “I just never expected to be so ordinary.”

 

After being hypnotized by Maggie’s sister, Tom is gifted with a psychic connection to Samantha, the ghost of a neighborhood girl gone missing. His son also has a connection to Samantha and converses with her throughout the movie.

 

Initially his gift and his visions distress Tom. As the story unfolds, Tom gets more obsessed with what happened to Samantha. He receives a message to dig for her.

 

When his wife finds Tom in their backyard digging, Maggie wants him to stop.

 

Tom is angry and begins shouting at her, “This is the most important thing that’s ever happened to me. This is the most important thing I have ever done in my life.”

 

This sense of purpose is what moves Tom forward. If a different man, a more accomplished man, has become a “receiver” of ghost noise, I’m not sure they would have tuned in and followed the leads. Furthermore, if we consider that a person with less physical strength than Tom had been the receiver of the ghost messages, they might not have been able to do the digging and demolition that went into following through with the discovery of Samantha’s corpse.

 

Tom is the perfect receiver, the perfect candidate, to take on this mission. It made me wonder if Samantha, our ghost girl, had tried to reach out to anyone else prior to Tom. Tom’s son Jake communicates with Samantha, but not about finding her killers or her body. Did Samantha try to find other adults that could act upon the visions she showed?

 

Alternatively, maybe she didn’t try to connect with other adults. Perhaps Samantha was waiting patiently to give her messages to Tom, knowing he was strong and yearning to be extraordinary. Was Samantha waiting for a bump on the head, a burning fever, or some other pivotal moment where his guard was down enough to tap into his mind?

 

As the film wraps, we have a moment of Jake’s perception, and he is privy to all kinds of psychic noise. It’s unclear whether Jake is only hearing ghosts or if he hears the living as well. In either case, it’s crystal clear that Jakes’s gifts stay with him.

 

What was not made as clear to me while viewing the film was whether Tom’s ghost communication skills would continue. We see Samantha put on her coat and walk away, presumably to the afterlife, but maybe just to a more interesting house to haunt. Samantha’s murderers are identified, and her body found. Will Tom encounter other ghosts in need of a resolution in the future, especially since his son is also open to receive spirit messages?

 

I would like to believe now that Tom believes in ghosts, he will be more open and sensitive to spirits going forward. I want him to see ghost birds when he’s working on phone lines. I want him to be a warmer, more compassionate human because he understands even an ordinary life is still a life, a finite and lovely opportunity.

 

 

 

Sunday Funday: Let’s Go to the Movies

The Lodge Movie Poster
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The Lodge Movie Poster

Sunday is usually our day to get out of the house in search of some fun.  With both of us fighting off some February germs, my sweetie and I decided to take it easy and just catch a movie.

We’d seen the trailer for The Lodge a few weeks back when we went to see Color Out of Space.  I thought The Lodge looked suitably creepy and have been on the lookout for it to land in the local theaters.

This is not a blood, chainsaws, and jump scares movie.  This film is a heavy, stressful kind of scary.

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” — Stephen King

You have Dad’s new girlfriend caring for his two kids in Dad’s winter vacation cabin just before Christmas.  Dad’s a workaholic that skedaddles back to his job in the city, leaving the kids with this woman who is pretty much a stranger to them.  He’ll be back in two days, so what can go wrong?

Everything goes wrong.  The kids are jerks.  The girlfriend is more than a little off her rocker.  Let’s toss a blizzard into the mix and lose power so the cell phones are dead.  Everyone’s stranded in this cabin miles from nowhere with no communication and no vehicle.  Sounds like a super good time in the making, right?

What’s horrific in this movie is the churning of emotions.  The landscape is bleak, frozen white as far as the eye can see.  The situation is awful and getting worse every moment.  Our characters are cold, hungry, and desperate.  The two days that Dad is supposed to be gone seem more like a month.

Who is the villain in this movie; who is the monster?  Every character shows their ugly side, their darkness, at some point, but they also show their weak spots.  They are all at fault on some level; that’s why the movie stressed me out, because there really are no innocents and there is no happy ending lurking around the corner.

When the credits rolled, I was like, well, at least there weren’t screaming alpacas (Color Out of Space was stressful, particularly the alpacas).  I let out a sigh of relief for being set free from the weight of this movie.

The Lodge is scary because humans are terrifying.  There are no vampires or mask-wearing nuts roaming the woods, but this movie doesn’t need those gimmicks.