‘The devil doesn’t like jokes…’
In a year in which one of the worst possession movies of all time stank the place out, The Pope’s Exorcist quietly came and went with little fanfare in April of 2023. Russell Crowe is not the first name that comes to mind when thinking of horror cinema, so it’s a blast watching him battle the forces of evil here…
When a young boy (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) seemingly becomes possessed, the Vatican sends Father Gabriele Amorth (Crowe) to exorcise the stricken boy. There Amorth meets a young Spanish priest (Daniel Zovatto), the boy’s mother (Alex Essoe) and his older sister (Laurel Marsden). Together the four of them must battle an ancient evil.
The first half of The Pope’s Exorcist is standard possession fare. The problem with The Exorcist being so good is that it looms large over other possession movies so comprehensively that it’s almost impossible to break free from its insidious shadow. A committed performance from Crowe helps but it’s not until the, quite frankly, bonkers third act that The Pope’s Exorcist leaves much of an impression. Director Julius Avery employs VFX, make-up and camera trickery to move the action away from the boy’s bedroom right into the heart of the Catholic Church in scenes that have more in common with The Da Vinci Code than they do with The Exorcist.
In the end, despite some good work from Crowe (including a Mario-esque Italian accent), The Pope’s Exorcist doesn’t do enough to stand out from so many other films in the possession subgenre. At 90 minutes there are enough thrills and spills here to justify a viewing, particularly for horror fans, but this is the kind of film that will be completely forgotten about in a few years.