Exorcism

"The Devil Inside" usefully reminds us how little it takes to make some people scream in a crowded movie theater. Just cut to a shot of a priest standing in a corner looking like a zombie, or to a woman's body folding itself backward in half. The movie also reminds us how little it takes to crack up an audience - occasionally at the same shots that made it jump. The other night, some of us were with the "The Devil Inside," which opened Friday without a critics screening.

"The Devil Inside" usefully reminds us how little it takes to make some people scream in a crowded movie theater. Just cut to a shot of a priest standing in a corner looking like a zombie, or to a woman's body folding itself backward in half. The movie also reminds us how little it takes to crack up an audience - occasionally at the same shots that made it jump. The other night, some of us were with the "The Devil Inside," which opened Friday without a critics screening.

For those who thought last fall's Hollywood horror-thriller "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" was the last you'd hear of that satanically possessed coed, you were wrong. It's the Germans' turn to have a say, and their telling, the well-acted and sober-minded "Requiem " is a lot better. Directed by Hans-Christian Schmid , "Requiem" recounts events similar to those in the American movie (both claim to be based on an actual case). Here, an intelligent young woman named Michaela Klinger (Sandra Hüller )

Four people convicted in the beating death of a woman during what they said was an exorcism ritual on a remote Australian island were sentenced Friday to several years in jail. Sarah Bara was beaten to death with sticks last year on Groote Eylandt off the northern Australian coast. Last month, Glenys Wurrawilya, Susie Wurrawilya, Paul Wurramara and Roderick Mamarika pleaded guilty to negligent manslaughter in connection with the beating, which several children witnessed. Some of the accused had originally claimed that they beat Bara as part of an exorcism intended to cleanse...

An evangelical pastor and his sister have been arrested by police in Bolivia after they purportedly killed a sibling during a bathtub exorcism, officials said Monday. The suspects, Carlos Uriona and Adelaida Marca, were arrested after they allegedly drowned their sister during the ritual, police spokesman Juan Carlos Corrales said. "The suspects confessed that their 18-year-old sister was possessed by the demon and they wanted to purify her and christen her in a bathtub, but it went too far," said Corrales, speaking during a telephone interview.

CANAL NUMBER TWO, Guyana — A 15-year-old girl died after neighbors and a local pastor tried to treat her convulsions with an exorcism at a church, and Guyanese police said yesterday they are investigating. Sangeeta Persaud began to convulse Sunday as she drank tea for breakfast at her grandmother’s home in Canal Number Two, a farming village west of the capital, Georgetown, the grandmother said. Chaitranie Ramotar said she became worried and called the girl’s mother, who brought the pastor to the house.

WAUWATOSA, Wis. -- The Rev. Walter Halloran, a priest who took part in an exorcism that spawned the book and movie "The Exorcist," died Tuesday night at a Jesuit retirement home, officials there said. He was 83. He was the last living Jesuit who assisted in the 1949 exorcism at a psychiatric unit in St. Louis. Father Halloran was a 27-year-old Jesuit scholastic at Saint Louis University when a priest called him to the psychiatric wing at Alexian Brothers Hospital. The Rev. William S. Bowdern was trying to help a 14-year-old boy who he believed was...

NEW YORK — Citing a shortage of priests who can perform the rite, the United States’ Roman Catholic bishops are sponsoring a conference on how to conduct exorcisms. The two-day training, which started yesterday in Baltimore, is to outline the scriptural basis of evil, instruct clergy on evaluating whether a person is truly possessed, and review the prayers and rituals that constitute an exorcism. Among the speakers will be Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, and a priest-assistant to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

There’s truly a satanic force at work in the logy exorcism thriller “The Rite,’’ and it goes by the name of Anthony Hopkins. The august Oscar-winner and Knight of the British Empire isn’t the film’s star — that would be the handsome but particle-board dull Colin O’Donoghue as Michael Kovak, a junior priest and devoted skeptic — but Hopkins takes possession of “The Rite’’ with wit, impatience, and, when it counts, a stentorian bellow...

Previously released Barney’s Version A smart, well-acted two hours at the art house that, really, has no business being a movie. Paul Giamatti plays the rascally, much-married Barney Panofsky over four decades of hair and makeup, but without the acrid, wordy first-person voice of Mordecai Richler’s novel, the film has little point. (132 min., R) (Ty Burr) The Illusionist Like peering through a rippled windowpane onto a past that knows it’s disappearing.

An evangelical pastor and his sister have been arrested by police in Bolivia after they purportedly killed a sibling during a bathtub exorcism, officials said Monday. The suspects, Carlos Uriona and Adelaida Marca, were arrested after they allegedly drowned their sister during the ritual, police spokesman Juan Carlos Corrales said. "The suspects confessed that their 18-year-old sister was possessed by the demon and they wanted to purify her and christen her in a bathtub, but it went too far," said Corrales, speaking during a telephone interview.

Previously released Barney’s Version A smart, well-acted two hours at the art house that, really, has no business being a movie. Paul Giamatti plays the rascally, much-married Barney Panofsky over four decades of hair and makeup, but without the acrid, wordy first-person voice of Mordecai Richler’s novel, the film has little point. (132 min., R) (Ty Burr) The Illusionist Like peering through a rippled windowpane onto a past that knows it’s disappearing.

There’s truly a satanic force at work in the logy exorcism thriller “The Rite,’’ and it goes by the name of Anthony Hopkins. The august Oscar-winner and Knight of the British Empire isn’t the film’s star — that would be the handsome but particle-board dull Colin O’Donoghue as Michael Kovak, a junior priest and devoted skeptic — but Hopkins takes possession of “The Rite’’ with wit, impatience, and, when it counts, a stentorian bellow...

NEW YORK — Citing a shortage of priests who can perform the rite, the United States’ Roman Catholic bishops are sponsoring a conference on how to conduct exorcisms. The two-day training, which started yesterday in Baltimore, is to outline the scriptural basis of evil, instruct clergy on evaluating whether a person is truly possessed, and review the prayers and rituals that constitute an exorcism. Among the speakers will be Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, and a priest-assistant to New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

Early on in “The Last Exorcism,’’ Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a handsome, charismatic preacher in Baton Rouge, brags to a documentary crew that once he gets a congregation fired up, he no longer needs to make sense. To prove it, during his next sermon he begins spouting nonsense about banana bread. The minds behind “The Last Exorcism’’ (count producer Eli Roth among them) apparently feel similarly about horror audiences: work them into a frenzy with slaughtered livestock and demons, and whatever comes next doesn’t matter, because they’ll shout “amen’’ whether...

CANAL NUMBER TWO, Guyana — A 15-year-old girl died after neighbors and a local pastor tried to treat her convulsions with an exorcism at a church, and Guyanese police said yesterday they are investigating. Sangeeta Persaud began to convulse Sunday as she drank tea for breakfast at her grandmother’s home in Canal Number Two, a farming village west of the capital, Georgetown, the grandmother said. Chaitranie Ramotar said she became worried and called the girl’s mother, who brought the pastor to the house.

Early on in “The Last Exorcism,’’ Cotton Marcus (Patrick Fabian), a handsome, charismatic preacher in Baton Rouge, brags to a documentary crew that once he gets a congregation fired up, he no longer needs to make sense. To prove it, during his next sermon he begins spouting nonsense about banana bread. The minds behind “The Last Exorcism’’ (count producer Eli Roth among them) apparently feel similarly about horror audiences: work them into a frenzy with slaughtered livestock and demons, and whatever comes next doesn’t matter, because they’ll shout “amen’’ whether you deliver a substantive...

Certain very good actors have an excellent eye for trash. Laura Linney might have 20/20 vision, based on her parts in "Congo," "The Mothman Prophecies," and, most outrageously, "The Life of David Gale," in which she played a homely yet extreme political activist. The fun of these movies is that Linney often seems too refined for such greasy junk, but there she is anyway, hamming it down as it were. Linney is more or less the star of "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," a perfectly sorry excuse for a horror film that casts her as Erin Bruner, an uptight, top-flight...

For those who thought last fall's Hollywood horror-thriller "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" was the last you'd hear of that satanically possessed coed, you were wrong. It's the Germans' turn to have a say, and their telling, the well-acted and sober-minded "Requiem " is a lot better. Directed by Hans-Christian Schmid , "Requiem" recounts events similar to those in the American movie (both claim to be based on an actual case). Here, an intelligent young woman named Michaela Klinger (Sandra Hüller )

Certain very good actors have an excellent eye for trash. Laura Linney might have 20/20 vision, based on her parts in "Congo," "The Mothman Prophecies," and, most outrageously, "The Life of David Gale," in which she played a homely yet extreme political activist. The fun of these movies is that Linney often seems too refined for such greasy junk, but there she is anyway, hamming it down as it were. Linney is more or less the star of "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," a perfectly sorry excuse for a horror film that casts her as Erin Bruner, an uptight, top-flight lawyer...