Filmmaker Scott Derrickson seemingly woke up nostalgic for his 2005 possession movie The Exorcism of Emily Rose this week, sharing a pair of behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the movie. It’s previously been reported how much of star Jennifer Carpenter’s performance in the movie wasn’t enhanced by CGI or other effects means, but now Derrickson has revealed that her work in the movie was one of the reasons the film almost got slapped with an “R” rating. Luckily for the director this was something that he appealed to the Motion Picture Association of America to have altered, and surprisingly the ratings board actually relented.
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
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
