A tragic tale of teen rebellion and misplaced faith, this is a sober and sobering account of a young girl's untimely end, made enthralling by great performances and restrained direction.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 30, 2006

Working from an economical and intelligent script by Bernd Lange , Schmid directs his first feature with the easy conviction that eluded the makers of the preposterous Emily Rose.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 24, 2006

A naturalistic and thrillingly powerful film, with a stand-out performance from Hller at its centre.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 21, 2006

The movie ends a little too abruptly, but it features a heartrending performance from Sandra Huller that brought her the best actress award at this year's Berlin Film Festival.

| Nov 18, 2006

Stage actress Sandra Huller delivers a stunning, understated performance...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 17, 2006

The nonsensationalistic results are also somewhat ho-hum -- and oddly less convincing than Friedkin's lurid mess, let alone the elegant satanism sagas of Tourneur and Polanski.

| Nov 16, 2006

The confusion and panic and everyday interactions in Requiem feel honest and true-to-life, which has nothing to do with how factual it is, or isn't.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 16, 2006

In lesser hands, Requiem would seem merely bleak, but Schmid makes a rigorously urgent and compelling film out of Michaela's odyssey.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 2, 2006

Quietly devastating and unbearably moving, this is a soul-searching classic.

| Oct 30, 2006

[Sandra Hller's] intensity is so compelling you truly have no idea if those demons are real.

| Original Score: A- | Oct 25, 2006

Requiem isn't a horror movie so much as a thwarted coming-of-age story, like Carrie without the bloody reckoning.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Oct 20, 2006

You won't find rotating heads and vomit in the exorcism movie Requiem. Instead, German director Hans-Christian Schmid relies on a frighteningly realistic performance by Sandra Huller as blue-eyed blonde Michaela.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 20, 2006

Like The Exorcism of Emily Rose ... Requiem is loosely based on the real-life story of a West German woman who died in 1976 after a series of failed exorcisms.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 19, 2006

Just as haunting as a horror film and far more heartrending.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 19, 2006

This quietly unnerving psychological study from German director Hans-Christian Schmid wields its ambiguity about religion and science like a double-edged blade.

Full Review | Oct 17, 2006

Hller's master class in acting is not only a portrait of a holy creature frenzied by otherworldly spirits but a voluptuous reflection of the pressures that accosted so many women of her character's age, time, and devotions.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 13, 2006

Sandra Hueller deservedly won an acting prize in Berlin (she could have taken home 'most conflicted character' as well).

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 23, 2006

The film is incisive about the all-too-mundane social, physical and emotional pressures exacted upon its heroine.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 23, 2006

[A] stunningly played story of faith vs. family.

| Apr 25, 2006

Closely observed story of the mental and family pressures that can lead someone to accept an exorcism.

Full Review | Apr 25, 2006