Blackwater Valley Exorcism DVD Review

Review written by DJBenz

Released by - Momentum Pictures

Directed by Ethan Wiley
Written by Ellary Eddy
2006, 90 minutes, Rated 15 (UK)
DVD Released 3rd March 2008

Starring:
Cameron Daddo as Jacob
Kristin Erickson as Isabelle
James Russo as The Bishop
Jeffrey Combs as Sheriff Jimmy
Randy Colton as Ely
Madison Taylor as Claire
Don O. Knowlton as McCall
Leslie Fleming-Mitchell as Blanche
Paul Kapellas as Luke
Del Zamora as Miguel

Review:

Make a movie about demonic possession and you might draw parallels with The Exorcist. Make a movie about a young girl who’s possessed by a demon and you could be accused of lacking in ideas. Make a movie that mostly takes place in a possessed young girl’s bedroom, with a troubled priest as her only salvation, and you’re just taking the piss.

Blackwater Valley Exorcism pretty much takes The Exorcist lock, stock and barrel from a brownstone in Washington to a ranch in the country. Isabelle has started acting strangely; when she goes missing from the house, she turns up in the wilderness in her night gown, covered in the blood of the rabbit she’s just killed and eaten. Her skin is pale and waxy, her eyes dark and sunken, and she spends all her time in her bedroom, sometimes cutting herself. Her parents’ worst fears have come true...

Their daughter has turned emo.

Before they start burning her Fallout Boy CDs (which wouldn’t be a bad thing anyway), Jacob and Blanche are offered an alternative explanation for their daughter’s increasingly bizarre actions by farmhand Miguel. He’s a bit mysterious and ‘knows stuff’.

“She doesn’t need a doctor,” he tells the worried parents, “she needs a priest...”

“I knew it. She is possessed!” blurts out her mother, in one of many laughable and completely unnatural pieces of dialogue.

So fast forward through Isabelle’s deterioration, speaking in tongues and a demon voice, battles with the priest and grubby secrets about his past, exorcism rituals, holy water, suicide and murder and we end up with a half-hearted attempt at a twist ending. It doesn’t matter that the ending has no impact, you won’t care by that point.

Blackwater Valley Exorcism is, like many of its peers, based on a true story. Most movie adaptations of true stories spin them a little to get maximum entertainment value. In this case, they tried to put The Excorcist, into 'Old MacDonald had a Demon' and hoped no-one would notice. Ee-eye, ee-eye, NO.

Audio, Video and extra features not graded as this was a screener.

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