The Pope’s Exorcist. 2023
Directed by Julius Avery.
Starring Russell Crowe, Daniel Zovatto, Alex Essoe, Franco Nero, Laurel Marsden, Cornell John, Ralph Ineson, River Hawkins, Pablo Raybould, Ryan O’Grady, Alessandro Gruttadauria, Bianca Bardoe, Paloma Bloyd, and Carrie Munro.
SYNOPSIS:
Follow Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s leading exorcist, as he investigates the possession of a child and uncovers a conspiracy the Vatican has tried to keep secret.
Somewhere in the world, at some point in time, director Julius Avery found himself watching one of those generic awful exorcism movies that seem to release annually every year coinciding with holidays such as Easter and Halloween and must have imagined what they would be like if the priest fought demons with jokes, rode around on a Vespa, and was played by Russell Crowe putting on Italian accents and having fun with such schlock. The result is The Pope’s Exorcist, which once again sees the Overlord filmmaker interjecting history with supernatural forces and leaning into gruesomely edgier impulses (there is a death during the climax that comes close to being worth the price of admission alone).
Non-fiction is a relative term here, but it’s also worth noting that The Pope’s Exorcist is based on the Vatican’s chief exorcism conductor, Fr. Gabriele Amorth (Russell Crowe), based on his memoirs An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories, here specifically fixated on a case in 1987. As a result, screenwriters Michael Petroni and Evan Spiliotopoulos (R. Dean McCreary, Chester Hastings, and Jeff Katz receive screen story credits) are placed into a tricky predicament where they clearly have to honor the life and memoirs of a real person (regardless of what is on those pages) but also ramp up the horror and bold personality of Gabriele. In other words, the filmmakers here are caught between having fun with this absurdity and treating certain aspects (guilt and fear come to mind) as serious.
Perhaps this would be less of an issue if the central family being terrorized by an unnamed demon (disturbingly and perversely voiced by Ralph Ineson during possessions) felt like real people in a real situation (especially considering much of this is supposedly based on memoirs and real cases) rather than a setting and characters cribbed from whatever exorcism movie you turn to your left and pull off your Blu-ray shelf right now.
They are recently widowed mom Julia (Alex Essoe), struggling to connect with teen daughter Amy (Laurel Marsden) and young Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney). The former is mad about moving to a gigantic home in Spain their father left behind (Julia plans to renovate and sell it and then move back to America to appease Amy), whereas the latter (in another overused cliché) hasn’t spoken a word in a year upon witnessing the death of his father while in the backseat of a tragically fatal car accident. Before the family can even get themselves situated, the workers have inadvertently unleashed a demonic presence that possesses Henry. Meanwhile, Gabriele teams up with a local priest (Daniel Zovatto) and occasionally receive wisdom and guidance from an unnamed pope (Franco Nero).
Julius Avery has two things going for him here: he has a genuine love for horror, at times paying homage to genre classics (a scene where one character is pulled from underneath and down into their bed brings to mind A Nightmare on Elm Street), and that when he is indulging in some more of the sub-genre clichés (the usual demonic insults, sinister carved body writing, upside down crosses, and crab-walking), it’s done so with competent craftsmanship and genuinely horrifying makeup effects. Still, the hook of Russell Crowe hamming it up performing exorcisms suffers from spending far too much time with these thinly-written characters. There’s a problem when an opening exorcism unrelated to the rest of the plot is far more entertaining than most of what follows.
The Pope’s Exorcist is certainly intriguing when diving into Gabriele’s soldier backstory and one particular sin he has improperly atoned for, but director Julius Avery never fully breaks free from playing things straight and jumping into the truly bonkers genre chaos from Overlord that immediately cemented him as a name to pay attention to in horror. Essentially, he took a bit too much inspiration from the above-mentioned generic exorcism nonsense, squandering his own zany concept. However, there are teasers of a sequel, and considering Russell Crowe knows exactly what kind of movie he is in, appropriately hamming it up, here’s hoping that the filmmakers can also get it right for the next exorcism.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
