An Irish Exorcism

IMDb
THE EXORCISM DIARY is a story about an Exorcism carried out in a country house in Ireland. The tale deals with the effects of the Exorcism on the six individuals involved, two Priests, two students documenting the event, and a mother and daughter



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Sometimes I think this genre is getting to the point where 50% of directors and producers just can’t be bothered any longer.

An Irish Exorcism had all the right ingredients to offer something unique from a country that is not known for producing Found Footage efforts.

What can I say…it tried…but I’m afraid I’ve seen this movie many times before…

A Half Decent Story

When you are confronted with a decent enough Found Footage story the rest should take care of itself really. A good plot is a good basis for character development and a solid foundation to build an atmosphere on.

This offering had a decent story – it wasn’t exactly Stephen King quality but it had enough ‘guts’ to keep you interested.

Unfortunately when you combine a decent plot with some of the stupidest character decisions I’ve seen in Found Footage you end up with what we have here…

A mediocre Found Footage movie!

The Plot

Lorraine ( Aislinn Ni Uallachain ) is a anthropology student in her final year of college. Her thesis project is based on Catholic exorcisms and she has the bright idea of filming it to gain higher grades/qualifications.

She grabs a handy cameraman mate and goes about interviewing the local Irish priests. She’s getting nowhere fast until she stumbles upon the rather surly character of Father Byrne.

It turns out that this aging priest is actually in the process of helping a teenage girl get rid of the demonic forces that are ‘troubling’ her.

So Lorraine hangs onto the coat-tails of Father Byrne in an attempt to find out the truth behind Catholic Exorcisms.

She finds more than she bargained for…

Location, Location, Location

Being Welsh, I’ve often had the opportunity to hop over to my neighboring country ( Ireland ) and experience the beauty of the rural settings.

If I was going to shoot a film in Ireland ( or Wales for that matter! ) I would definitely try and incorporate the natural landscape into the project.

For some reason this Found Footage effort decided to completely ignore the hauntingly beautiful settings Ireland offered and this really pissed me off.

British Found Footage films like The Borderlands and Hollow manage to take full advantage of wonderfully natural and Gothic countryside. This film decided to bypass all that FREE cinematic brilliance and shoot mainly indoors.

Conclusion

It ain’t bad…but it certainly ain’t that good!!!

As I mentioned above, they TRY their best to make the film shine but they get stuck in the same ruts as many other Found Footage efforts out there.

The saying ‘Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all’ seems a prefect fit for this film. They had the opportunity to try something new but opted for the same old song.

I thought the actors were pretty competent but Aislinn Ni Uallachain suffered from a little ‘over-acting’ in certain scenes ( and she was the lead character! ). She failed to convince me that she was anything other than an Irish actress in an Irish Found Footage film.

The special effects were pretty much non-existent throughout the course of the film. We we treated to the super-overused video static every now and again but that was about it.

The general filmmaking standards were alright but they sort of stuck in the ‘safe zone’ ( if you know what I mean! ). It would of been nice if they’d tried something ‘outside the box’ in certain scenes but they chose not to.

Overall this movie gave me the same sort of feeling I get when I just miss a bus. I’m not totally pissed off but I can’t help wondering what would have happened if I got there earlier.

Definitely give it a go but don’t expect anything you haven’t seen before…

Full Movie on Xmovie8