Movies
Jennifer Carpenter’s Performance Was So Scary, ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ Originally Received an “R” Rating
Before Sinister became a horror favorite, director Scott Derrickson mixed real-life drama into a tale of possession with The Exorcism of Emily Rose, which recently celebrated its 15th anniversary.
The dramatic horror film starred Laura Linney as a lawyer who takes on a negligent homicide case involving a priest (Tom Wilkinson) who performed an exorcism on a young girl, played by a pre-“Dexter” Jennifer Carpenter.
The big selling point for the movie was that Carpenter had performed her own terrifying contortions and that no Hollywood tricks had been utilized. Derrickson looks back at her mesmerizing performance, recalling actually building a puppet for the iconic dorm room sequence, only to have Carpenter do it all in-camera.
For this dorm room scene in The Exorcism of Emily Rose, we had built a puppet with these body contortions. When Jennifer Carpenter saw the puppet, she said “I think I can do that.” It took her maybe 15-20 minutes, but she did it. That is all her. pic.twitter.com/CjWa6Qwmw1
— N O S ⋊ Ɔ I ᴚ ᴚ Ǝ ᗡ ⊥ ⊥ O Ɔ S (@scottderrickson) April 19, 2021
Carpenter didn’t just twist her body, she contorted her face so horrifically that the MPAA originally slapped The Exorcism of Emily Rose with an “R”-rating “for disturbing images and terror,” forcing Derrickson to remove the scene. As he explains, Derrickson “wanted a PG-13” rating for theaters. An “Unrated” version of the film was subsequently released on home video.
There was a scene in The Exorcism of Emily Rose where Jennifer Carpenter contorted her own face so disturbingly, the MPAA gave the film an R rating. I appealed in writing and they refused to back down, so I cut it because I wanted a PG-13. pic.twitter.com/qPdl4D7Y2T
— N O S ⋊ Ɔ I ᴚ ᴚ Ǝ ᗡ ⊥ ⊥ O Ɔ S (@scottderrickson) April 19, 2021
The Exorcism of Emily Rose took in a whopping $145 million globally on just a $19 million reported budget. It was a smash hit that would lead to Derrickson directing the Keanu Reeves sci-fi thriller The Day the Earth Stood Still and eventually Marvel’s Doctor Strange. Carpenter would next star in Showtime’s “Dexter” and the horror movie Quarantine.
ALSO READ: An Exorcism Like No Other: The Exorcism of Emily Rose Turns 15
Filming is underway on The Invisible Man director Leigh Whannell’s Wolf Man for Universal and Blumhouse, which will be howling its way into theaters on January 17, 2025.
Deadline reports that Matilda Firth (Disenchanted) is the latest actor to sign on, joining Christopher Abbott (Poor Things), Julia Garner (The Royal Hotel), and Sam Jaeger.
The project will mark Whannell’s second monster movie and fourth directing collaboration with Blumhouse Productions (The Invisible Man, Upgrade, Insidious: Chapter 3).
Wolf Man stars Christopher Abbott as a man whose family is being terrorized by a lethal predator.
Writers include Whannell & Corbett Tuck as well as Lauren Schuker Blum & Rebecca Angelo.
Jason Blum is producing the film. Ryan Gosling, Ken Kao, Bea Sequeira, Mel Turner and Whannell are executive producers. Wolf Man is a Blumhouse and Motel Movies production.
In the wake of the failed Dark Universe, Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man has been the only real success story for the Universal Monsters brand, which has been struggling with recent box office flops including the comedic Renfield and period horror movie The Last Voyage of the Demeter. Giving him the keys to the castle once more seems like a wise idea, to say the least.
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