My idea for an "Exorcist" film

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The Exorcist franchise has gone on for decades promoting human suffering and encouraging (unintentionally) the gullible to get their children harmed or slaughtered by exorcists. The last films have gotten a little better, portraying the demonic possession as "possible just a psychological phenomena", but that in no way goes nearly far enough.

Someone needs to come up with a film entitled Exorcist - Gone Wrong and come up with a fanatical, zealous, tragic villain priest who finds a child with a known medical condition and ignores all evidence that they are suffering from something other than demons. This exorcist needs to zealously and fanatically try to "root out" the demon and - in the process - kill the child.

Too much BS has happened because gullible viewers have accepted Exorcisms as benign or at least good-intentioned. The evil of this institution needs to be on display in the public consciousness. This is just sickening, the extent to which people trust or view favourable exorcizing priests.

To even be amusing, it would
a) Have to strongly make the priest the antagonist. The problem with this is that the "rational science squad" likely is too boring.
b) Be a rather post-modern movie, in that it makes the priest and others highly misguided protagonists, putting them in a sympathetic light but one full of disturbingly wrong things about them, and that both provokes them and mocks them.

It has great comedy possibilities.

I think doing it as a black comedy in the style of Hot Fuzz would probably work. Have a medical doctor play the role of the overachieving cop - that is, he's the voice of reason and is just shocked at the outright stupidity of the whole thing. Then you have the Priest play the role of The Neighborhood Watch. Except the roles would be reversed - you'd see most of the "Neighborhood Watch's" - that is, the Priest's - thoughts, feelings, and rationales (which would appear utterly stupid - i.e. the epileptic child is moving around, it must be a DEMON!) while the Overachieving cop - the medical doctor - says "for God's shake, man, the child has epilepsy!".

But perhaps even a black comedy would be too light given the subject matter and a classical tragedy would be a better style to go for.

Ironically, I had the idea of writing something like "The Exorcist Gone Wrong" as early as Grade 7 - I just didn't have the writing skills (or zeal) pull it off!

How about a nymphomaniac girl claiming she s driven by the devil and a young priest highly attracted to the girl but trying to get rid of the demon.

And you do now?

Somerset Maugham did a story titled "Rain" about a priest trying to save a girl. It was a tragedy but a comic take with an exorcist viewpoint might be funny.

If you want somebody to die, comedy rarely works. Even further, I kind of doubt that the silliness could really continue that long without arbitrary filler, which may detract from the film. The idea of an exorcism is just difficult to stretch out that much, I think, at least without being very serious on the subject.

Classic tragedy is unlikely to work either, as there is a hint of the absurd in what is going on here.

I would still say that the best bet is a bit more in a postmodern tragedy direction. Make the priest the protagonist, have the audience's perceptions follow his perceptions to some extent, giving hints along the way that the priest may be wrong.(people saying that there is a mental illness) Also, throughout the story, have various character elements be revealed, with some characters more rational, and the priest starting off looking good, eventually be shown to be a questionable character. Eventually have the matter build-up until we have the child die.(maybe starving the child to death would be an option, as it allows a slow process) The story ends with people going to jail, or a trial, and at this point it needs to be made clear that the priest was very much wrong. The delusion of the demon is then kind of shattered for good. Then perhaps end with the reaction of the parties involved, and making there be different reactions is also good. Make the most likable character question the beliefs that led them to that end, with a strong suggestion that his likable qualities lead him to that end. Make the priest still affirm what he believes, with a strong suggestion that he is doing so because of his flaws.

Of course, it takes a bit of imagination and wit. It could be hilarious. Monty Python would have a ball.

If I did, I'd have written it. But since I have no ability whatsoever to write anything of believable plot, I'll have to wait for someone else to come up with such a superb antidote to The Exorcist.

The thing about a black or morbid comedy, though, is it's specifically designed for dealing with death-ey subjects. Fargo touched on the subject pretty well, for instance.

How about this: Someone fails to pay their excorcist, and gets reposessed?

Sorry.


Ghostbusters was an excellent spoof of the idea of excorcism, but they took a whole different tack than you.

you're going for a kinda of well-meaning bumbling inspector Cleuseau in a priest's collar. A true believer who see's the supernatural where it doesnt exist and causes disaters as a result at every turn.

Might work as comedy.

Listen to the song "the Mississippi Squirrel Revival" by Ray Stevens to get some ideas on how to get comedy out of people mistaing the natural for the supernatural.

How about a society where epilepsy is the norm.? The priest could be casting demons out of the child because she is just so damn boring. OUT SPIRIT OF CALMNESS! OUT I SAY!

I don't think that movies on demon possession really influence people to have their kids exorcised, except around the edges of culture. Most child exorcisms occur in cultures that already have very strong beliefs about possession. In America, one finds that transplanted members of these cultures are responsible for most of the goofy "exorcisms" of the mentally ill and epileptics and such.

An exception to that is the idea of exorcism as medical cure-all bubbling up in segments of homegrown fundamentalist Christianity. Those people are responsible for the much publicized "exorcisms" of gays, anorexics, and the mentally ill. I don't know where they got that idea, but it's likely not from Hollywood but from the logical conclusion of already twisted beliefs.

I don't think that such a movie is really needed. If you've watched "The Exorcism of Emily Rose", the "possessed" girl dies horribly after extended sessions of exorcism. That movie was supposedly based on a true story. That's hardly a ringing endorsement of the practice.

At the Rick Ross cult archive (rickross.com) section on exorcism, I was only able to find a single case of a person with autism being subjected to an exorcism, and the "preacher" was a storefront holy man with no ecclesiastical education, nor robes from any recognized faith.

When asked at trial where he got the idea that he could be a holy man, he said that God told him, that he had a "gift from God", and that he was divinely called to lead his own church. He had set up a church in a rundown strip mall, and the mother had come to him for help with her son. He subsequently crushed the boy to death trying to force the "demon" out of him.

Exorcisms of gays are slightly more common, but the preachers there tend to be from offshoot churches and who bear credentials from fly-by-night Bible colleges. The main purveyors of exorcism, the Catholics, are very choosy as to who they try and exorcise.

It's not really that big of a problem. America has total freedom of religion, which historically has provided cover for dicey prophets from Joseph Smith to L. Ron Hubbard to televangelists who found cheap colleges that give kids bad ecclesiastical educations.

The problem with the exorcism of Emily Rose (which is very loosely based on the case of guilt-filled ultraconservative Catholic Anneliese Michel's episodes and negligent homicide by Priest, one of the main differences being that the story is Americanized) is that it leaves the viewer uncertain as to whether the behaviours were psychological or due to a real possession. The unbelieving defense lawyer ends of believing in demons at the end, for instance, and people are somewhat uncertain as to whether the Priest's actions were justified under the circumstances. The Last Exorcism covers the tail of a fradulent evangelist who ends up dealing with a REAL demonic possession.

What I want is an unambigiously non-existent possession - one where the possed child clearly has a difficult to treat psychological condition. And I want a gullible, religiously insane evangelist to exorcising the person in spite of obvious signs.

As a side note, cases of exorcism requests skyrocketed after the first Exorcist film.