Childhood is hell

For those who don’t like mixing their proverbial beans with potatoes, director Christian Alvart serves horror straight up in Case 39.

Case 39
Big Home Video/Paramount, Rs Rs 599
Rating: ***

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For those who don’t like mixing their proverbial beans with potatoes, director Christian Alvart serves horror straight up in Case 39. In a contemporary update of The Exorcist story, we encounter Renée Zellweger exchange the usual priestly robes for that of a social worker, Emily Jenkins. At the heart of the horror lies the 10-year-old Lillith Sullivan (Jodelle Ferland) who Emily encounters and saves from what she believes to be abusive parents (abuse being defined by trying to roast their daughter alive in an oven). But as she takes Lillith under her wing before finding a suitable foster home for her, Emily realises that the precocious girl is more than just a piano-ballet-studies kind of severe young girl. The mute button on the remote should be kept handy. And it’s nice to see Zellweger play something more bony than Bridget Jones with a demon child.