<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" width="425" height="355"> <embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="355" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/aCPGHDrVQMU&hl=en" wmode="transparent">
The opening shot of Chronicles of an Exorcism does not bode well: a frightened man pointing a camera at his own face and breathlessly explaining how everything has gone haywire and he knows that death is soon upon him. It's been nine years since The Blair Witch Project, not nearly long enough for us to forget where that iconic image came from.
Happily, that's the very worst part of the film, and while Chronicles may not be the finest indie horror film to ever waltz down the pike, it's a pretty satisfying experience nonetheless. An example of the "found footage" genre pioneered by Blair Witch but not fully exploited until the past few months, Chronicles has at least one leg up on its stablemates, Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead: the fact that the participants keep filming during the shit that goes down is explained in a way that seems reasonable and in keeping with normal human behavior. They're getting paid for it.
The cameramen-protagonists of Chronicles are Lee (Rob G. Kahn, the one we tend to see in the movie) and Ross (David Michael Ross, the one who tends to be filming), hired by the Catholic Church to document an exorcism superintended by Father Lucas (writer-director Nick G. Miller) and the secretive Father Michael (Matthew Ashford), with support from the Baptist pastor Bill (Ray W. Keziah). To be frank: the very notion of an exorcism movie will forever dwell in the shadow of William Friedkin's The Exorcist, and it's hardly a surprise that the micro-budgeted Chronicles doesn't even come within shouting distance of that genre-defining picture. But on its own terms, the movie comes up with some fairly effective scare moments, especially a fantastic chase through a cornfield; on paper, it lasts twice as long as you'd think it should, but in practice it's a suspenseful scene, even the third or fourth time Miller pulls the same "demonic girl popping up from nowhere" card, that it positively flies past.
Towards the end, the film does bog down in some regrettable but probably unavoidable scenes of religious technobabble (sacrababble?). The balance is probably something like one-third talky scenes, two-thirds effective tension and scare scenes, but the talky scenes are all in a block, and that block is where the climax ought to be.
Beyond that, the film's chief failure is that it never takes advantage of what is easily the most interesting dynamic onscreen. Father Michael and Father Lucas are pitted, time and again, against the filmmakers (seemingly agnostics) and especially Pastor Bill. There's much to be dug out of the specific Protestant/Baptist vs. Catholic nature of this tension, but it's only hinted at, never expressed. It strikes me as a significant missed opportunity.
All in all, though, it's a mostly effective horror film in its less verbose moments. At any rate, it gets the most it can out of the cheapness and smallness of its production, rather than pushing its ambition so far that it crashes and burns. It is modest at best, but it is absolutely a modest success.
Flag this Content as Inappropriate