That's true - there've been a couple Jewish-type possession movies (there was another one I feel like I saw recently, but I felt like it really dropped the ball because it didn't really stick to its own premise). There are a few east-Asian horror movies that are nominally possession-ish and don't fall into the same patterns which is nice. I mean, I do realize that demons are a mostly Christian concept, at least as most people understand the word. Evil supernatural figures aren't solely Christian, of course, but the idea of demons in service to something like the devil and taking a human host is a fairly Christian concept. Buuuuut some things still handle those concepts better than other things.
I love the original Exorcist. I can't really remember much about 2 and 3, though I'm sure I've seen them. I should give Emily Rose another try - I remember not caring for it, but a lot of other people have said they did, so maybe I was just not in the right mood for it at the time. Same with The Rite - I remember liking the cast, obvs, but finding the plot super generic and uninteresting, but I should try it again. The Conjuring movies (and their spinoffs) are hit or miss - I've liked some quite a lot and not liked others. We saw The Nun II last week, and I liked it better than the first one. (And I think the first one could have been okay if it had just skipped the first five minutes and trusted the audience to watch the movie instead of needing the resolution spoon-fed at the beginning.) I can't remember if I've seen Deliver Us From Evil. Deborah Logan *was* super creepy, imo, but I can imagine how much worse it would be when you were going through stuff with your aunt! But that's exactly it - so many exorcism movies rely on the exact same beats and "symptoms" of possession from the Exorcist, but without anything good to back it up. The "yes, the girl will contort, and maybe crawl up a wall, and omg she said something super filthy and mean! Now she'll imply that one of the priest's family members is in hell! Now she'll try to seduce and/or shock him with crude sexual language!" And of course the exorcism team will be one experienced priest and the second, younger one having a crisis of faith and this will be the experience that helps him regain his faith in God. (yawn) We watched "The Last Exorcism" recently, which I think I'd seen before, and was less bad than I expected. Evidently the second one was very bad, but I don't think I ever saw it.
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I mean, I do realize that demons are a mostly Christian concept, at least as most people understand the word. Evil supernatural figures aren't solely Christian, of course, but the idea of demons in service to something like the devil and taking a human host is a fairly Christian concept. Buuuuut some things still handle those concepts better than other things.
I love the original Exorcist. I can't really remember much about 2 and 3, though I'm sure I've seen them. I should give Emily Rose another try - I remember not caring for it, but a lot of other people have said they did, so maybe I was just not in the right mood for it at the time. Same with The Rite - I remember liking the cast, obvs, but finding the plot super generic and uninteresting, but I should try it again. The Conjuring movies (and their spinoffs) are hit or miss - I've liked some quite a lot and not liked others. We saw The Nun II last week, and I liked it better than the first one. (And I think the first one could have been okay if it had just skipped the first five minutes and trusted the audience to watch the movie instead of needing the resolution spoon-fed at the beginning.) I can't remember if I've seen Deliver Us From Evil. Deborah Logan *was* super creepy, imo, but I can imagine how much worse it would be when you were going through stuff with your aunt!
But that's exactly it - so many exorcism movies rely on the exact same beats and "symptoms" of possession from the Exorcist, but without anything good to back it up. The "yes, the girl will contort, and maybe crawl up a wall, and omg she said something super filthy and mean! Now she'll imply that one of the priest's family members is in hell! Now she'll try to seduce and/or shock him with crude sexual language!" And of course the exorcism team will be one experienced priest and the second, younger one having a crisis of faith and this will be the experience that helps him regain his faith in God. (yawn)
We watched "The Last Exorcism" recently, which I think I'd seen before, and was less bad than I expected. Evidently the second one was very bad, but I don't think I ever saw it.