Manual Carballo’s Exorcismus (2010) is a somewhat predictable attempt at a possession film, though it is a personal belief of mine that no possession film will ever top the Exorcist. But I digress. The story follows a young girl named Emma (portrayed by Sophie Vavasseur) as she slowly becomes possessed by the devil and her following exorcism. Vavasseur was an interesting choice for the lead; she seems realistic and even likeable until the actual possession scenes. In almost all of the possession scenes, Vavasseur falls flat, seeming more cheesy than believable. There weren’t really many deaths in the film, basically just Emma’s little brother and two others, none of which were very innovative (or gory). Thankfully, the plot itself wasn’t a complete disaster. I enjoyed the fact that the priest actually gave this girl a way to invoke the devil, so that he could capture the devil on film (thus proving its existence, thus more followers of the faith). The concept was interesting and made the priest seem just as diabolical as the demon that held Emma’s body captive, and made the girl’s ability to conjure such a creature more believable.
The ritual that Emma does to invoke the devil is actually the bloodiest/goriest scene in the entire film, and that is all self-inflicted and doesn’t even come close to killing her. Instead, she cuts open the palm of her hand and uses the blood to draw symbols on the bathroom floor that summon the devil. When Emma sees herself in demon form, in reality it should be the coolest and/or creepiest part of the film, but for some reason (perhaps the CGI) these parts just wound up looking and feeling cheap. The cinematography was interesting – the shots selected were good, but the camera holder was shaky with the equipment so the entire film feels very low budget. Perhaps a tripod or something of that nature would have helped. The music wasn’t memorable in either a good or bad way, so I figure that’s a plus because at least it wasn’t terrible. The exorcism itself was interesting, though I’d have to say that yet again it was not the most original concerning how the possessed should act and think.
I’d really like for there to someday be a possession film that even compares with the Exorcist, but this one is definitely not even close. If you like possession/haunting type stories though, you might get a kick out of this one if you can get past the shaky camera and green acting. One would never think that this film had a million dollar budget and grossed over three million dollars worldwide. Those statistics actually stunned me, with the overall low-budget quality the film has. Number of killers? Two if you count the suicide. Body count? 2 or 3, it is never restated that the kid (her cousin?) who is involved in the car wreck is dead or just unconscious. Boob count? Zero. Cheap thrills? Zero. Actual spooks endured? Zero. Entertainment? Somewhat. Raven’s Scream Meter says: 1 out of 5 Screams. Only worth a watch if you have a couple of hours to kill and really, really, really have a passion for possession films that seem rather uninspired and have more dialogue than action.
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