I've never seen "The Exorcist" beyond brief clips and I'm not sure I would want to. I don't really care for scary movies, and to me, this certainly was one, at least toward the end, with a few frights toward the beginning. But I find many people say movies aren't scary when I certainly thought they were. So that's what has to be considered when looking at my opinions.
However, there was much more here. I've enjoyed a lot of movies that started out as something else and became horror movies. Ignoring the frightening first scene, this starts out with the conventional theme "Dad no longer lives with us kids so we have to spend weekends with him". The parents don't get along, the mother has a new boyfriend, and at least one of the kids is frustrated with the situation. That by itself could have made the movie work (on the level of a Lifetime production), though it is the less troubled daughter whose behavior begins to go to the extreme and beyond. Eventually, the reality cannot be ignored and this is a horror movie. In my opinion, there is a lot of excitement when events reach their climax. Not necessarily pleasant.
I've never heard of Natasha Calis but she is amazing here when the demon takes over. Some of this is stunt people, but she seems quite talented at gymnastics. And she is good as an ordinary girl who is frightened by what she can't understand or even remember. Her enthusiasm for a vegetarian diet is admirable but not something I could deal with.
That alien voice supposedly speaking Hebrew was plenty scary, I don't care what you say. Music was effectively used in scenes that were supposed to be scary.
Other performances are good but for the most part this is like the conventional movie one might see on Lifetime. I would expect more from Kyra Sedgwick, but she is perfectly adequate and goes overboard with incorrect assumptions. Jeffrey Dean Morgan has his moments. He makes a good coach, and his best scenes include his determination when the situation becomes clear.
The scenes with Hasidic Jews seem quite realistic even if I don't know how they really are. The two most prominent members of the religion (are they rabbis?) do a very good job, and the explanation of what is going on sounds plausible enough. Descriptions of Jewish culture seem realistic too. I never considered that an exorcist could be Jewish instead of Catholic, but I guess it works. The one guy seems kind of confused later, but can you blame him?
Grant Show was a disappointment. I know him as the pleasantly evil CW version of Blake Carrington. All I can say is he looked familiar, and he was underused. Where was he? Even when he was there, he wasn't really worth talking about. Although he was attacked by the demon and what the censors didn't get to seemed quite good.
How convenient that the perfectly ordinary hospital had a large empty space for the necessary actions. And a spooky red light in at least one area.
Someone forgot that a bridge in the U. S. shouldn't say meters. Oh, well.
It goes without saying that younger kids shouldn't see this, but the censors did some work on this before I saw it, and I'm not sure what got left out.
However, there was much more here. I've enjoyed a lot of movies that started out as something else and became horror movies. Ignoring the frightening first scene, this starts out with the conventional theme "Dad no longer lives with us kids so we have to spend weekends with him". The parents don't get along, the mother has a new boyfriend, and at least one of the kids is frustrated with the situation. That by itself could have made the movie work (on the level of a Lifetime production), though it is the less troubled daughter whose behavior begins to go to the extreme and beyond. Eventually, the reality cannot be ignored and this is a horror movie. In my opinion, there is a lot of excitement when events reach their climax. Not necessarily pleasant.
I've never heard of Natasha Calis but she is amazing here when the demon takes over. Some of this is stunt people, but she seems quite talented at gymnastics. And she is good as an ordinary girl who is frightened by what she can't understand or even remember. Her enthusiasm for a vegetarian diet is admirable but not something I could deal with.
That alien voice supposedly speaking Hebrew was plenty scary, I don't care what you say. Music was effectively used in scenes that were supposed to be scary.
Other performances are good but for the most part this is like the conventional movie one might see on Lifetime. I would expect more from Kyra Sedgwick, but she is perfectly adequate and goes overboard with incorrect assumptions. Jeffrey Dean Morgan has his moments. He makes a good coach, and his best scenes include his determination when the situation becomes clear.
The scenes with Hasidic Jews seem quite realistic even if I don't know how they really are. The two most prominent members of the religion (are they rabbis?) do a very good job, and the explanation of what is going on sounds plausible enough. Descriptions of Jewish culture seem realistic too. I never considered that an exorcist could be Jewish instead of Catholic, but I guess it works. The one guy seems kind of confused later, but can you blame him?
Grant Show was a disappointment. I know him as the pleasantly evil CW version of Blake Carrington. All I can say is he looked familiar, and he was underused. Where was he? Even when he was there, he wasn't really worth talking about. Although he was attacked by the demon and what the censors didn't get to seemed quite good.
How convenient that the perfectly ordinary hospital had a large empty space for the necessary actions. And a spooky red light in at least one area.
Someone forgot that a bridge in the U. S. shouldn't say meters. Oh, well.
It goes without saying that younger kids shouldn't see this, but the censors did some work on this before I saw it, and I'm not sure what got left out.