For better or worse, Satan seems to have gotten his very own reality show with Chronicles of A Exorcism, and is loving all the attention. Written and directed by Nick G. Miller, this combo Exorcist, Blair Witch Project and clerics gone wild movie within a movie, invites along a couple of amateur filmmakers to record a collective cleansing ritual targeting a demonic possession.
The afflicted young woman in question, Tina Miller (Dara Wedel) is holed up alone in a rural North Carolina shack. This, as the presiding clerics of various antagonistic denominations and creeds (one of whom is played by the director) called out to the home on a mysterious assignment, do theological battle among themselves nearly as much as with the dark forces.
This evidently low budget production lacks the special effects necessary to pull off an occult thriller with any appropriate sense of creepy atmosphere. So the strategy instead seems to be mostly a heightened sense of reality as-is, which doesn’t quite work when it comes to supernatural evocations. Nor does the aura of a real time exorcism, which comes off more as overly repetitive and monotonous, rather than a documentary in progress.
And most ill-advised, is the decision to go with hand held cameras, a cost-effective move likely intended to substitute for special effects, but a most unpleasant distraction that will probably send collective viewer digestive systems into dizzy mode. It certainly did for me, so much so that I started feeling a little demonically possessed by the rough camera work myself.
Echelon Studios
EchelonStudios.us
Rated PG
2 stars
