The Pope's Exorcist
SONYThe Pope’s Exorcist, directed by Julius Avery, is the most recent in a long-running line of popular exorcism based films of which have now spanned sixty decades. Most can not reach the momentous height or quality of what William Friedkin’s 1973 genre-defining The Exorcist achieved right out of the gate – not even within that very franchise itself – and mostly reach the heights of something along the lines of 2022’s Prey for the Devil – otherwise known as “not particularly good”.
The Pope’s Exorcist falls somewhere in that sweet-spot of quality between the two films aforementioned above. It is a completely serviceable – even competent – piece of genre work that straddles a very fine line between cheesy nonsense and sincerity. Elements that can all be attributed to lead actor Russell Crowe as Father Gabriele Amorth. Speaking strictly on Crowes’ performance, there's a whole lot to like. The academy award-winning actor powers through every scene and sells every insane plot-point the feature throws at the audience – not only as if it is the finest dialogue written by man but, most importantly for the viewer, the actor looks like he's having a whole host of fun while he does it in the same vein as his recent off the rails exploit of Unhinged back in 2020.
The above point of Crowes’ enthusiasm is important, as the plot itself (written by Michael Petroni and Evan Spiliotopoulos) is a basic and bog-standard issue for a majority of the just over ninety minute runtime. Nevertheless, the third act is, without ruining its insanity, arguably the best aspect, bar Crowe, of the film itself by a quite a long stretch. Strangely, The Pope’s Exorcist only gets better as the clock keeps ticking. Perhaps a tool of the “so bad its so good” department but, nevertheless, is still a surprising aspect when the usual foray into this type of sub-genre in horror is a dump and run-a-thon of not being able to land the landing, often giving up on its own half-baked narrative that wants it to be over more than the poor viewer does. Averys’ film cooks through its runtime as if it is nothing, being a tight feature that gets the audience in and then gets them right back out again as if nothing even happened. A seemingly easy, harmless viewing exprience that does its job and moves on, which is not necessarily a bad thing either, because even with a powerful turn from Crowe and a rousing insane final act, with a limited production and predictable/saturated narrative there really is no way, on paper, The Pope’s Exorcist is going to turn the wheel one way or another. To be very honest, The Pope’s Exorcist, on paper, and even in points on screen, is sometimes a poor and predicable experience, but even then it has chaotic sparks of energy and life that pushes it from unremarkable to redeemable. Sometimes for an audience just wanting that type of horror genre experience, that is all it needs to be.
For all its unremarkable traits, The Pope’s Exorcist justifies itself as a feature for just sitting back and looking for some basic tension and amicable performances. Elements that keep the viewer on the edge of their seat for just long enough to care but also to not feel tedious and undewhelmed with whats happening on screen, doing all of this much better than a similar contemporary feature such as Consecration, released earlier this year. None of this may sound particularly like a positive endorsement regarding The Pope's Exorcist for horror enthusiasts or audiences alike, but this is exactly what was and is expected of such a production, especially when the trailer first played in front of audiences eyes with little glee and certain accent confusion. The Pope's Exorcist just so happens to have a few very fun and chaotic tricks up its sleeves for those willing to give it a shot and with a tight running time coupled with Russell Crowe putting on an Italian accent, it might just be worth the time. Though, if any viewers are sitting at home itching for a horror film about demonic possession that does it bigger, better and bloodier, this is strangely a month with many options waiting in the wings, and should, without any hesitation, probably choose Evil Dead Rise, which is everything this feature wishes it could be: scary and beautiful, all at the same time.