Paging Father Merrin...

Rating: 1/10 (14 July 2014)

Haunted house/demon possession tale, allegedly based upon the exploits of real-life "paranormal investigators" Ed and Lorraine Warren, whose supernatural findings at one such house allegedly inspired the book "The Amityville Horror" (just as this film was obviously inspired by everything from "The Exorcist" to "Poltergeist"). It's another screaming-Mimi, targeted at audiences with amnesia. The highly-derivative James Wan directed; he borrows (or rather, steals) from so many other films, his picture is like a vulture in a graveyard--picking clean the bones of cinema's past. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga play the Warrens, here attempting to drive out the demon who's stirring up trouble in the farmhouse of a Rhode Island family in the early 1970s. Lili Taylor has the Linda Blair role here; she gets to spin upside while tied to a chair, vomit up blood through a bed sheet and speak in a guttural voice, "You're all going to die!" If there were any cinematic justice, this movie would have been laughed out of early screenings--but, astonishingly, it garnered some positive reviews from professional critics and attained a sizable audience. NO STARS from ****