The Rite

Whatever you do, avoid The Rite!

This exorcism flick -- so poorly written, horribly directed, and with not-scary-at-all special effects -- is so bad that a beefy supporting role by Anthony Hopkins can't salvage it. In fact, Hopkins seems to be phoning it in alongside lead Colin O'Donaghue. The two have no chemistry in their roles as priests and exorcists.

The actors are so dull, I cheered for the Devil to win the spiritual battle during the final scene just so I could experience some excitement.

About a third of the way into the movie, I became bored and fell asleep. As I slept, I dreamt The Chinchilla scurried up the theater aisle, hopped into the cup-holder between Mrs. Film Geek and me and said hello. His eyes glowed red, and his voice was unusually low, and gravely.

Mr. Chinchilla: "May I share some of your popcorn?"

Me: "I suppose. You interviewed me once, you know. We're sorta friends. So yeah, you can share my popcorn."

Mr. Chinchilla [red-glowing eyes glancing toward me]: "Blogging is dead, you know. People love Facebook now, and Twitter. No one reads your blog. They don't care."

He laughed a maniacal laugh, then threw a kernal of popcorn into his mouth. Because he was still laughing hard, he started to choke on the corn. I gently patted him on the back, and offered him a sip of Coke. Mr. Chinchilla shifted the poprocn into his cheek-pouch, took a sip of Coke, then started laughing again.

Mr. Chinchilla: "Most of the bloggers you used to read are gathered in Hell, waiting for you. I torture them every day, for hours a day, by forcing them to read text longer than 140 characters and not allowing them to click "like" buttons. Goddamn it, people hate not being able to click "like" buttons!"

In my dream, The Chinchilla was just starting to tell me which of my old WV blogger buddies he enjoyed torturing the most when Mrs. Film Geek shook me awake.

"You're snoring," she whispered. "It was so loud, it was embarrassing."

Whatever. I bet it wasn't as embarrassing as The Rite.