When you're making a spoof of a movie it's usually best that you do so within a decent timeframe so that you guarantee more of your audience will be familiar with and has seen the subject of your satire. It's something movies like Epic Movie and Date Movie have been doing (badly) the last few years and it was pulled off considerably well by Mel Brooks with his 1987 effort Spaceballs. So it's hard to understand just why writer-director Bob Logan decided to make a comedic take-off on The Exorcist seventeen years after its release.

We all know William Friedkin's 1973 movie is considered a classic, but I still feel that by making his film too many years down the road Logan only manages to limit the amount of people who'd either: a) get the references, or b) even be interested. And this is despite the fact he managed to get Linda Blair (who played Regan in the first two Exorcist movies) to star - and damned if she doesn't have a fun old time of it.

Blair plays Nancy, a typical American girl who, as we see in the opening scene, once had her body taken over by Satan. But thanks to Father Mayii (Leslie Nielsen, riding his Naked Gun career refresh) she was exorcised and has managed to move on to a happily married life with a loving husband and two kids. It seems though that the "Dark Lord" hasn't forgotten her as she finds herself repossessed when the Devil takes over her body through the television while they're watching the latest broadcast by televangelist Ernest Weller (Ned Beatty).

The task of ridding the evil from Nancy once again falls to the young Father Brophy (Anthony Starke) who has to try and convince a retired Mayii to take a break from the college lecture circuit to help him complete his task. At the same time, Ernest and his heavily made-up wife Fanny Ray (Lana Schwab) have decided to try and exorcise Nancy themselves on a huge television special.

As made by Logan, Repossessed is a movie that's trying way too hard to be another movie in the vein of Airplane! There are a whole slew of visual and literal jokes (such as a sign saying "Do not back up, severe tire damage" ending with our car driver being pelted with tires when he does) tossed at the screen in hopes that some of them will stick. There's also a lot of humour focused on events of the time (such as the Oliver North scandal), which only helps to "date" the movie.

With such a literal non-stop pace of puns and slapstick I'm glad to report that even though some jokes don't work too well (including the Star Wars moment between Starke and Nielsen) there are enough mild chuckles to make the movie a mostly bearable time. There's nothing here that'll make you laugh-out-loud and Logan overdoes it on the pea soup vomiting moments but Repossessed isn't the worst of its type out there.

Of course, having a game cast helps quite a bit. Apart from Blair's evident pleasure in her role it's Beatty and Schwab who manage to steal the show every chance they get. With characters obviously modelled after Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, they seem to be enjoying themselves in their roles and Schwab does a pretty damn good job impersonating her subject. Nielsen is as goofy as expected while Starke is actually the weakest of the cast, which is funny considering you'd figure he'd be used to this type of movie after starring in Return Of The Killer Tomatoes two years prior.

Despite Logan being late to the party in regards to his spoof topic, Repossessed makes for an okay 81 minutes even if some of the worst moments come in the last third including a groaner of a golf cart chase and a pretty terrible finale. (Chris Hartley, 9/16/07)

Directed By: Bob Logan.
Written By: Bob Logan.

Starring: Linda Blair, Ned Beatty, Leslie Nielsen, Anthony Starke.