When someone speaks of "genre conventions", they are talking about situations or characters which commonly occur in movies of a similar nature. Examples would be the masked killer in a slasher movie, or the multi-angle explosion in an action movie, or musical montage in a chick flick. (I guess that we could also call these cliches, but let's stick with genre conventions.) Some sub-genres have come to be identified by their genre conventions. Let's take the demonic possession movie for example. The Exorcist set the bar for these films back in 1973 and they've all been copying it ever since. Every possession looks exactly the same and these "genre conventions" tend to hold these movies back. The latest example is Exorcismus.

Exorcismus (which apparently takes place in England) focuses on the Evans family. Teenager Emma (Sophie Vavasseur) is unhappy with being home-schooled with her younger brother, Mark (Lazzaro E. Oertli Ortiz) and wants to go to school with kids her age. She does spend time with her cousins Alex (Tommy Bastow) and Rose (Isamya French) and they "party" from time-to-time. Emma's parents, John (Richard Felix) and Lucy (Jo-Anne Stockham), notice that she is becoming more defiant and things get worse when she has a seizure. When medical tests come back negative, Emma goes to see a psychologist, but this ends badly. Following some more outbursts, Emma's uncle Christopher (Stephen Billington), who is a priest is consulted. Despite some initial skepticism, Christopher begins to think that Emma may be possessed, as he's had some experience in this area. John and Lucy skoff at this idea, but they decide that a ceremony may act as a placebo and help Emma. However, the exorcism reveals that something supernatural may be happening.

If you're going to take the time to watch an entire movie, hopefully some sort of connection is made and the movie creates an emotional reaction in the viewer. With Exorcismus, that reaction was frustration. 90% of this movie is junk, but the 10% that is good, is pretty good and that makes the experience all the much worse.

Exorcismus was made by a Spanish crew working British actors and maybe it was a break down in communication which ruined most of the movie. To put it mildly, this movie is boring. For 90 minutes, we watch Emma act twitchy, her parents fret, and Christopher offer vague advice. Emma exhibits all of the classic signs of possession (eyes rolling back in her head, voice changing, etc.) and no one seems to take it seriously. At times, the movie seems to be purposely mirroring The Exorcist, as we get the combination of a teenager who appears to be acting out combined with every cliche from the exorcism movie playbook. When John and Lucy do finally decided to do something, it's very little and we can't help but think that they get what they deserve as bad things continue to happen. All of this is intercut with odd flashbacks for both Emma and Christopher.

And then something shocking did happen, the movie presented a great plot twist. I'm torn here. I would normally never reveal a film's plot twist, but I don't want any of you to have to sit through this movie in order to get to the twist. OK, I won't give it away, but suffice it to say that it's quite clever and, for once, we actually get an explanation for the possession. And this is what made the movie frustrating. I was ready to turn this movie off 10 minutes in (and if I wasn't reviewing it, I probably would have) and the finale suddenly becomes a much smarter and more clever film. Where were these ideas throughout the rest of Exorcismus? My hunch is that it was this twist that sold the movie to producers and the rest was built around it.

Exorcismus reminds us to look both ways when we cross the street on DVD courtesy of IFC Films. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the transfer is enhanced for 16 x 9 TVs. The image is very sharp and clear, showing very little grain and no defects from the source material. The image is a tad dark at times, but the colors look good. The picture has a crisp look to it and the exterior scenes look great, showing a nice amount of depth for a DVD. The DVD carries a Dolby Digital 2.0 track, despite the fact that the box claims that it's 5.1. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. There are some nice stereo effects here and audio from the left or right of the screen is nicely defined. The sound effects and music are well-mixed and they never overpower the dialogue.

The Exorcismus DVD contains only two extras. "Making of" (17 minutes) (which contains the films original title The Possession of Emma Evans) contains interviews with the director and writer, who talk about their goals for the film. We also have the cast talking about the production. The piece is oddly paced, as it will offer a comment from someone involved in the film and then show a clip from the movie or some on-set footage with no narration, which will then be followed by another comment. We do get some solid information about the movie and what the production process was like. The other extra is the TRAILER for the film.