“Jesus, what the fuck?!” exclaims psychic teenage girl Gwen Shaw (Madeleine McGraw) in Scott Derrickson’s new film The Black Phone, as she loses patience with the inconsistency of what she believes are religious visions that may help her find her kidnapped brother. That doesn’t sound like a sentiment that a Christian filmmaker would give to his film’s most likable character, but Derrickson has never fit the stereotype of a Christian filmmaker, despite being one of the few successful Hollywood directors to speak openly about his faith.
The religious content in The Black Phone is minimal, but in 2005, Derrickson made his mainstream breakthrough with a movie steeped in faith, the combination courtroom drama and possession thriller The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Billed as “based on a true story,” it’s loosely inspired by the real-life case of Anneliese Michel, a German woman whose 1976 death was blamed on the priests who performed an exorcism on her. Derrickson and co-writer Paul Harris Boardman take only the basic details from Michel’s case, moving the story to the present-day U.S. and making their version of Michel into a supporting character.
Emily Rose may be the movie’s title character, but she’s more of a plot device than a person, a catalyst for the courtroom showdown between rising defense lawyer Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) and determined prosecutor Ethan Thomas (Campbell Scott). The story begins just after Emily’s death, with a fakeout opening that suggests a different kind of exorcism movie. A lone figure dressed in black, carrying a worn satchel, walks up to a desolate house in the middle of nowhere, as ominous music plays. As a mysterious figure stares furtively out the window, the man enters the house, but he’s not there to cast out demons. He’s the medical examiner, and he’s arrived to determine Emily’s cause of death.
That stark contrast between familiar horror-movie set-ups and standard legal proceedings is what makes The Exorcism of Emily Rose unique, and Derrickson maintains that balance for the entire movie. Emily’s death is ruled a homicide, and the police arrest Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson), Emily’s parish priest. Father Moore maintains that he did what was best for Emily, and that performing an exorcism was the only way to rid her of the demons that were tormenting her. He’s put on trial for negligent homicide, and the local archdiocese hires Erin to defend him.
Erin is a self-described agnostic, while Ethan is a devout Christian (although not a Catholic like Father Moore), but they both revere the law. Derrickson is known as a horror filmmaker, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose features its share of horrors, but this is mainly a drama about two smart, driven people arguing ethical and philosophical issues in a courtroom. Jennifer Carpenter plays Emily in flashbacks that are presented in the recognizable cinematic language of horror movies, with a tense score, lurid colors, and grotesque special effects. Derrickson primes his audience to accept the possession story at face value, since horror viewers are inclined to suspend their disbelief for all manner of supernatural occurrences.
But both Derrickson and the prosecution then challenge that perspective, recounting the same events through the lens of illness, with Emily suffering from epilepsy and psychosis. The movie devotes far more time to the possession angle than to the medical explanation, but Derrickson never lets any ostensibly supernatural event pass without offering its more mundane counterpoint. The result is a movie that constantly interrogates its own assumptions, about faith and also about the horror genre, which has its own set of rituals and icons that are not entirely dissimilar from religion.
Father Moore warns Erin of “dark, powerful forces” aligning against her, and when she wakes at 3 a.m., unsettled and convinced there’s a presence in her house, Derrickson frames the scene in the same way as the demonic flashbacks of Emily. Horror viewers know what happens next: The demons that possessed Emily will now come for Erin, and this agnostic will learn of the dangers of the supernatural realm. But that’s not what occurs—Erin may start to give some credence to Father Moore’s beliefs, at least for the sake of winning her case, but she isn’t visited by actual spirits, and there’s no indication that demons have crossed over into the movie’s version of objective reality.
If The Exorcism of Emily Rose is a movie made from a Christian perspective, which Christian represents that perspective? Is it Ethan, the man of faith who is offended by what he sees as a perversion of that faith that resulted in the death of a young woman? Is it Father Moore, so convinced of his spiritual judgment that he encourages a young woman to ignore medical advice in favor of an ancient ritual? Or is it Erin, a lost seeker who eventually finds solace in a conception of a world beyond her own? Unlike most explicitly Christian filmmakers, Derrickson allows for all of those interpretations, encouraging his audience to find their own definition of faith within his film.
Derrickson is also still making a horror movie, and Ethan isn’t entirely wrong when he objects to a particularly outlandish courtroom tactic of Erin’s on the grounds of “silliness.” But the actors make sure that even the hokiest plot developments are taken seriously and grounded in real emotion. Linney conveys Erin’s personal and spiritual journey over the course of the case, and Wilkinson makes Father Moore’s assertions of demonic threats sound like sober warnings from a wise, experienced practitioner. For Derrickson, faith and horror are both concepts worthy of careful consideration, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose gives them both their day in court. 
“The Exorcism of Emily Rose” is now streaming on HBO Max.
