Well, this is my first blog entry, so I thought that I would place something in here that I wrote somewhat recently. I watched this movie about a week ago and wrote a analysis of it on my forum located Here

I wanted to go see this movie when it came out in the theaters, but I never got around to it. I watched it this evening on a DVD that a friend gave to me. Here are my conclusions:

1) The movie is very Catholic based and the theme is largely based on Catholic theology, not Biblical theology. This isn’t unusual for Hollywood, but I was hoping for something a little different on this so-called “based on a true story” movie.

2) Towards the end, when the priest is trying the excorcism, he demands that the demon who is possessing Emily identify himself. Finally after some brutal demands and theatrics, the demon identifies itself as “Belial” or “Lucifer in the flesh”. Well, this isn’t possible. Satan doesn’t inhabit people. He is sitting at the foot of God, accusing us of falicies. The Bible doesn’t ever give any account of Satan possessing someone except for Judas and the Anti-Christ, as far as I know. I will research this to be sure, but really I don’t think it is possible. Now, demons lie…so obviously it could have just claimed to be the Devil, so this part is possible, but unlikely.

Also, the excorcism is done as some sort of “ritual” with specific steps and procedures. Never is anything like this mentioned in the New Testament when the Apostles cast out demons.

3) After this, Emily, the possessed girl, suppossedly has a spiritual vision of an encounter with the “mother of heaven” Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary tells her that this possession will not pass and that Emily has been chosen as a Saint to be possessed in order to prove to the world that demons exist.

This is common Catholic flaw. Mary has no higher place in heaven than any other believer and she is certainly not God, or equal to God. So this part of the movie pretty much ruined it for me as being an “athentic” story. I think that this is just Hollywood or Cathlic fluff.

4) Emily is given a choice by Mary to either stay in her human body and undergo torture, possession and eventually death in order to provide evidence to the world that demons exist (as if she had such authority to give such a choice) or to be removed from this possession and go to be in heaven with Mary and God. Again, not a power that Mary has to grant.

Emily chooses to stay and undergo the torture in order to be an example.

5) At the end, in the trial, the priest who attempted the excorcism says that he believes Emily to be a devout beliver, a “Saint” and to be in heaven. This is doubly flawed in that a “Saint” is a believer in Christ who has been saved by Jesus blood, which is never mentioned here, and also because I do not belive that a Saint, or believer in Christ, someone who has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, can be possessed by a demon. This just doesn’t make sense to me. I will need to search for Biblical verification of this, but I have been reading the Bible my whole life and I don’t believe this is possible.

Overall, I was hoping for a more Biblically based movie since it was suppossedly based ona true story. I woud like to find an actual account documented somewhere and see how it differs. I do very much belive in demonic possession and I think that it happens today more than modern society allows us to believe.