Yes, the film took its time; I assumed that the writers were new to the medium and unsure of themselves. Everything had to be explained, the viewer was not trusted to pick up on things and it sure dragged. But the basic story, that is, the real story of events that happened to the young woman back in the 70's is a natural for re-telling. 'The Exorcism of Emily Rose' took this story and reduced it to a genre-horror film. Scary and well made but a religious propaganda film down deep and it failed to tell the fascinating story. But 'Emily Rose' led me to look into the story of the young German woman, who actually suffered this terrible fate and died a horrible death at 26. Further research led to 'Requiem' which was described, by the more serious film critics, as a much different and better film than 'Emily Rose'. Well, yes and no, the no part being: what happened to the end of the real story? Why wasn't it filmed? The real event was that the parents and the two priests starved the poor kid to death while doing their voodoo. Folks, they were arrested, went to trial and were found guilty. But then the German justice system went awry and they were all given suspended sentences and put on probation for a few years. Isn't this part of the real story worthy of adding to a movie? All that slowness and redundancy didn't leave time for the dramatic payoff! Or perhaps the film's producers lost financing or felt that the shooting ratio was too much, too expensive and frankly (from their point of view) too dull to make some bucks in North America. We'll never know, of course and in the meantime, the story of that young woman is waiting to be told.
Review of Requiem
