The Beyond: The Exorcism Of Emily Rose

Uninspired PG-13 Horror
Hollywood continues to churn out one mindless, uninspired, crappy remake after another, and it's getting to the point where even the most forgiving of audiences are saying, "enough is enough".
When this movie came out in theaters, and long after its release on DVD, I have to admit that I had my mind made up that I had no interest in seeing this movie. The problem was, the obvious comparasson to 'The Exorcist'. Some were calling it an 'Exorcist Ripoff' with a courtroom twist. How could any film on the subject of exorcism be even close to as good as 'The Exorcist', and not steal all of their ideas from it?

Now, for the record, when a critic or someone equally quilified, such as a 10 year old, or your average movie goer tells me something good or bad about a film, I usually take it with a grain of salt, and make up my own mind. For this film, that was hard to do because it already had a MAJOR strike against it in my eyes. It was rated PG-13.

   So, what's wrong with PG-13? For the most part, nothing at all. There are a lot of good films rated PG-13. My problem is when a movie comes out caling itself a thriller, or horror, and I find out that it's rated PG-13, I know that the movie isn't going to 'go all the way' to provide the thrills and horror that its advertisments promise. Its like making a porno without nudity. What's the point? Why bother?

   Then they make things worse by releasing an 'unrated' dvd with a whole 10 seconds of additional footage not seen in theaters. They don't show that footage to the MPAA, and that gives them the right to call it edgy and unrated. Count me out!

   The Exorcism Of Emily Rose fell into this crappy stereotype. That, along with the reviews made me decide to give this one a pass.
I was stupid. This was a good flick.

Anneliese Michel
   Now, all over the posters and the DVD case for this movie, it advertises that it's "Based On A True Story." I'm not going to go through a big rant about it, but it really bugs me when movie companies advertise that, and then completely change the story for shock or entertainment purposes. It just seems disrespectful to me.

   In this case they changed names and a few other things such as... Well, If you haven't seen the movie, I don't want to ruin it for you. The bottom line is that the film did no disrespect to the REAL story and in my opinion, they kept the essence of the true story intact.

   Anneliese Michel was born on September 21st,1952. She had what most people would consider a happy childhood. She and her family were devout Christians. In 1968 things bagan to change for her. She began to have 'seizures' so intense that she could barely function. This led to a deep, and severe state of depression. She had to be admitted into a hospital and was diagnosed with "Grand Mal" epilepsy.

   As time went on, Anneliese began seeing visions of evil and even demonic faces, and feelings of fear when she prayed. In the fall of 1970 faces and the feelings became too much. She started to believe that she was possessed by an evil entity. That's when the voices started. They told her that she would "stew in hell". She was no longer buying the 'epilepsy' crap that the doctors kept giving her, and she'd lost all hope in the medicine they were feeding her.

   In 1973, Anneliese's parents requested an exorcism, only to be rejected at every turn. The church claimed that she did not have the required 'symptoms' that would validate a case of possession. She did not have a fear of religious objects, she wasn't speaking in tongues, and she certainly had no unexplainable powers. An exorcism was NOT to be performed.

   Time moved on, and Anneliese's condition worsened. Pastor Ernst Alt, put in another request for an exorcism. Once again it was rejected. Anneliese ate flies and spiders while washing it all down with her own bodily fluids. She would also regularly bite, and attack her family members. She destroyed all religious objects that she came in contact with, and she began peeing on the floor and mutilating herself.

   After a while, she even refused to eat, as the alleged entities within her would no longer permit it.

   In the fall of 1975, The family and Pastor Alt finally were able to get through to the powers that be, and an exorcism was ordered by the Bishop of Wurzburg, Josef Stangl.

    Pastor Alt and a colleague, Father Arnold Renz would be the ones to perform the exorcism. It was determined that she had OVER SEVEN different entities within her. The entities claimed to be, a Frankish Priest named Fleischmann, Judas Iscariot, Nero, Adolf Hitler, Cain, and Lucifer himself. There were also many other nameless personalities that came through. Father Renz and Pastor Alt made over 40 recordings of the ongoing procedure.

   The exorcism took place over many months. She wouldn't eat. Her knees ruptured because of the hundreds of genuflections she obsessively performed during the the exorcism. She was weak, and by the end of the exorcism, she was suffering from Pneumonia and a high fever.

   She died of starvation on July 1st, 1976. Pastor Ernst Alt, and Father Arnold Renz along with Anneliese's parents were put on trial for negligent homicide, as it was believed that they all should have forced her to eat.

They ALL did time for allowing her to die.

"Facts Leave No Room For Possibilities"
    The problem with the release of this film was that it was falsely advertised. We were all misled about the type of movie it would be. People wanted to see the horror movie that was advertised, which made them disappointed because it wasn't a 'horror movie' at all.

    It was a courtroom drama. A priest believed that a troubled young girl was possessed by an evil spirit, or spirits. He tried to help her spiritually, via exorcism. She passed away, and he was put on trial for her death.

    This isn't horror. This is a philosophical debate of spirituality, and faith versus science, and fact. That just happens to be the basic idea for this entire website!

   Now, in the REAL story, the holy men brought their recordings into the court room. On those tapes, it sounded as if one of the demons was arguing with another one. They were arguing about which was going to have to leave her body first. The people involved with the exorcism had ZERO, NONE, NO DOUBT AT ALL, about what they were dealing with. Their was no question in their mind that they had a girl who was under the influence of over 7 demons. They felt that they were doing the right thing to help her. Apparently, the members of the court felt that the recordings didn't prove their case. They did not believe in all of this religious 'mumbo-jumbo', and were not open minded enough to see any possibilities. They saw what was in black and white in front of their faces.

   To those in the court room, Anneliese had epilepsy, and she starved to death as irresponsible people stood around and did nothing. To them, that statement was a FACT.

   They had their answer. There was nothing more to learn. On the MAIN PAGE of this website, I stated that ... Here, I'll quote myself...

"It's common sense. When we believe that we KNOW the answers, we stop asking questions. What's the point in asking somebody about what you already know? So, you stop asking questions and you stop learning."

   At the end of the movie, The defense attorney had a closing argument that sounded like something I've said to many skeptics and cynics over the years. It's the essence of this website, and was the basis for her defense. It was the idea that possibilities always exist. The moment something becomes a FACT, then its over. The answer is before you, and there is nothing more to learn.

   In the paranormal field, and I CANNOT stress this enough, we HAVE to be VERY careful what we classify as a fact.

   For example, someone, somewhere in the paranormal field once said, "Ghosts need energy to manifest themselves. Because of this, when a ghost is around, they'll use the heat energy in the air, and the temperature will drop."

Is this a FACT?

   Ghost hunters have been bringing infrared thermometers along on their investigations for years! Is it a fact that ghosts suck up the heat to manifest? I'm not going to answer that for you. I really try not to give any answers on this website, as I try to get readers to determine this sort of thing for themselves. Just ask yourself this question.

   How is it possible to determine FACTUAL information about a ghost when we have no real evidence that a ghost even exists?

No...

   The truth is that in the paranormal, there really are NO FACTS... But thats great, because without facts, we're left with infinite possibilities.

Keep an open mind, always.

For the record...
    There are pictures of Anneliese Michel floating around the net of how she looked AFTER the possession and exorcism. I've received multiple emails about these pictures, asking why they're not on this page.

   These pictures, are really bad. Dignity is a very important thing. I can't in good conscience host them here on my site. If you want to see them, google them.

   Respect.

Here are some other Emily Rose and Anneliese Michel related pages:

IMDB
Wikipedia (Emily Rose)
Wikipedia (Anneliese Michel)

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