5 Best Exorcism Films

Exorcism movies can be the most disturbing of all the horror subgenres, depending on your tastes. When done properly, they blend the mysterious and unknown psychological chills with the tactile delights of jump scares (those terrifying images that jump out of nowhere and truly disgusting and gruesome imagery and results.

Posted On November 25th, 2020

The Rite

Like The Devil Inside The Rite (2011) is not an especially brilliant movie, but for lovers of possession and exorcism movies, it still has some solidly scary moments. Plus, as Father Lucas, it stars Sir Anthony Hopkins and he's just such a blast to watch. As a time-hardened exorcist, he shows calm wisdom that lays a firm basis for the film. And, set in the Vatican, the film brings you all the Catholic mysticism you might expect from an exorcism flick.

The Devil Inside

The best thing about the film, in particular, is the eerie work of actress Suzan Crowley, who, shockingly, has done relatively little in the years following the release of this movie. She plays Maria, the principal character's possessed and institutionalized mother, Isabella. Isabella partners up with a director who makes a documentary on exorcisms, and after an exorcism did on her, Maria was previously locked up after murdering people. She's basically catatonic as Isabella meets her mum, and Crowley plays it with eyes that are a cross between dead and silently malicious, as she shows her daughter the cross-like marks on her arm and on her cheek. The Devil Inside is a movie with a few sweet, eerie moments of possession, but the plot and characters are otherwise missing.

The Possession

The young girl discovers a dybbuk package, inspired by an urban myth perpetuated a few years back by the real-life selling of such a box on eBay, along with the spooky tale attached to the post by the seller. The box is said to be a cabinet of wine haunted by a force of darkness called a dybbuk. In the movie, when the girl opens it all sorts of horror hits her and her family, not least because the ghost appears to consume her. The diagnostic experiments reveal unsettling images of the dybbuk within her, and finally, we get a Hasidic Jewish perspective on the practice of exorcism, which is a good change of pace for the genre. Plus, there is a strong cast, featuring Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Kyra Sedgwick as the parents of the kid, not to mention Sam Raimi producing.

The Priests

As is always the case, the person in this movie is a young child, but in this movie, as a result of an injury, she is originally in a coma. And the movie doesn't really dwell on her the possessed one, as much as you'd expect from an exorcism movie. We get a lot of interesting study and planning by the older priest/exorcist and his younger, more cynical assistant over the first two-thirds of the flick. In this strong first film by writer/director Jang Jae-Hyun, though, there is plenty of creepiness and jarring possession scenes to keep exorcism fans more than amused.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), like many exorcism films, is another that tries to add spooky credibility by pretending to be focused on a true tale. And there are certain aspects in this film that you might believe might have really existed as you see them on the frame because it's all about telling the story on both sides. Was an evil spirit really possessed, Emily Rose? Or had she been psychologically sick?