The Secrets of Emily Blair

I am not ever sure why I gave this movie a shot—so many exorcism movies are just retreads of other, better movies. Perhaps it was the length (only about 90 minutes). Perhaps it was a few of the stars, like Colm Meaney, Adrain Paul and Tom Wright—all so very good. Whatever the reason it was a huge waste of time.

I try not to write bad reviews, but this film really was terrible. I kept falling asleep. It was full of action, lots and lots of the possessed star—Ellen Hollman as Emily Blair—acting like a demon and starling and hissing, and lots of gore too. But it was just silly, and despite all the stuff that was going on, I was bored to tears. Even the actors I mentioned above were sub-par, which is sad, because they are such good actors. Maybe it was the directing by Joseph P. Genier? Or was it simply that the script was so bad that no one, not director or stars, could do anything with it? So blasé. So stereotypical. So sensationalistic. Right down to the part where Meaney, as the priest, tells Emily Blair's husband that the church just doesn't do exorcisms anymore.

I wonder how they got Larry Drake—the John Doe of the film in a very small part—to be in this? To do his first film in years? He was actually kind of scary, but he is in and out of the film way too fast for our own good.

Please don't waste your time on this movie. Because it really is a waste of time. How sad.

This movie sucks so hard it is pathetic. It is as far some insipid idiot who thought they were great at making movies tried way too hard. I am dumber after watching this movie, and not in a got stoned and feel good way. Just plain dumber. It makes me sick to my stomach, and not in a horror movie thrill kind of way either. The plot was entirely predictable. The voice acting is WAY too over the top without any irony. This movie takes it self way too seriously. I guess I did have some laughs thinking about how someone thought this movie was good enough to release! lol. I am going to film myself throwing crosses at squirrels and making Devilish Satanic voices about how the squirrels are possessed and then pan out to a very large turd in the driveway. All of sudden, blood red eyes will appear in the turd and the squirrels will freak out and run up a tree that has a circular saw running and the squirrels will get cut in half from the saw blade. There, I made a better movie than this.

If this is a joke, it gets a solid six. If it's a thriller, it gets zero. If it's a horror, well, there's some nasty stuff, so 2 for horror. I enjoyed it. I really did. I just have no idea what it was supposed to be. If a twelve-year-old watched The Exorcist, Deep Space Nine and Rocky back-to-back, wrote a script in three hours and gave it to their 16- year-old sibling doing a movie studies course and SOMEHOW it got though to some movie exec... well, that's this movie.

The first half of the movie wasn't too bad but after that it just spiraled into oblivion and you just wanted the film to finish quickly. I got the impression that they may have run out of budget and hence the choppy dialogues and scenes at the end.

Ellen Hollman was the better actor but Will Kemp's acting (her fiancé) was sub par. It's a shame that Ellen Hollman couldn't lift up the whole film with just her acting alone which I thought was good. It was weighed down by the bad scripting and acting from the other cast.

I would watch the first half of the movie with some interest but the second half, just let it run it's course while you are having dinner or chatting with friends.

I was in the mood to watch a B rated horror film to have on in the background while I was doing other things. This is exactly what I got and it's actually not bad for what it is. Give it a shot.