Exorcism movies in which the possession is not real

[nobodyimp]

For a project I am working on, I am searching for an exorcism horror film in which the possession is proven to be in the person's head rather than an actual manifestation of a demon. Either a hoax or a mental illness. Some movies come close. The Exorcism of Emily Rose is ambiguous, for example. Does anyone know of any that fit this description? I have been searching everywhere.

[Giganticface]

I don't know of one that clearly ends that way, but The Last Exorcism and Lovely Molly are ambiguous about whether the possession was real or in the victim's head.

[nobodyimp]

The Last Exorcism ends with the supernatural proven. Lovely Molly is not all that ambiguous once the ending hits.

[Giganticface]

Definitely wrong on both points, although it's certainly easier to assume each film was supernatural.

In Last Exorcism the only thing that's proven is that there's a cult. Whether it's not Nell's behavior is truly supernatural is not proven. There's plenty of evidence to suggest it is, but it can all be argued against. Read the message boards. The fact that there's wide disagreement means it's not proven, and the ambiguity is clearly intentional as conveyed in the final scene in the cafe. I haven't seen the sequel, so I don't know if they copped out and tried to explicitly explain the first one, but that shouldn't matter if considering the film as a stand alone piece.

Lovely Molly... the whole point of the movie is that you don't know what's real and what's not, including the ending. Director Eduardo Sanchez corroborates this (http://m.complex.com/pop-culture/2012/05/interview-lovely-molly-director-eduardo-sanchez), although he leans toward a supernatural explanation.

I wanted to see what would happen when your husband doesn’t have health insurance and he’s not educated at all for this type of situation, whether it’s mental illness or demonic possession.

...some people interpret it as, “We’re just seeing what Molly is seeing...”

For certain kinds of movies, like Lovely Molly, I think it’s imperative that you don’t answer everything because then you’re not really dealing with reality.
Like I said though, neither film proves that it's _not_ possession, so it's probably not what your looking for.

[zombiegummiebear]

The only movie I've watched that even debates is it real or not was The Exorcism of Emily Rose I think.

[adamhenderson]

I was sort of hoping that 'The Last Exorcism' would end unambiguously with it being all a manifestation of schizophrenia or something. It sort of leaned that way at one point in the film. I think you can still do an exorcism movie that ends this way and still be scary (indeed some might argue that it is even scarier!).

As for 'Lovely Molly', that movie freaked me the fuck out on multiple levels. My interpretation is that it was all in her head.

It just occurred to me that I haven't answered the OPs question. Sorry about that. I would love to know if there is indeed an exorcism movie that has a mental health as opposed to a paranormal explanation.