{"id":39481,"date":"2023-04-13T17:26:44","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T21:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=39481"},"modified":"2023-04-13T17:26:44","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T21:26:44","slug":"the-popes-exorcist-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/04\/13\/the-popes-exorcist-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pope\u2019s Exorcist (2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It feels a lot like the studios behind \u201cThe Pope\u2019s Exorcist\u201d is intent, or at least trying, to build a new horror hero in the vein of the Warrens a la \u201cThe Conjuring.\u201d While normally I would never root for a film to fail, I hope we don\u2019t get any sequels because I can\u2019t picture Gabriele Amorth being a dynamic or even compelling horror protagonist. Even with his first film, Gabriele Amorth is explored as a massively skeptical priest pulled in to an extraordinary and genuine exorcism. There really isn\u2019t much beyond what we learn about Gabriele Emorth or \u201cThe Pope\u2019s Exorcist\u201d for that matter.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Father Gabriele Amorth is the Vatican’s leading exorcist who investigates the possession of a child and uncovers a conspiracy the Vatican has tried to keep secret. Inspired by the actual files of Father Gabriele Amorth, Chief Exorcist of the Vatican, The Pope’s Exorcist follows Amorth as he investigates a young boy’s terrifying possession and ends up uncovering a centuries-old conspiracy the Vatican has desperately tried to keep hidden.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Pope\u2019s Exorcist\u201d infers that there\u2019s so much material to be mined since Amorth was a noted author (\u201cThe Books are Good,\u201d claims the film\u2019s closing captions). But the movie is so paper thin in its premise and never quite knows how to balance its story out. Rather than building in anticipation and tension, the writers pretty much drop everything but the kitchen sink on to the audience before the second half even presents itself. Before the actual exorcism, \u201cThe Pope\u2019s Exorcist\u201d is a slog to sit through, and when we get to the exorcism it\u2019s a check list of exorcist movie tropes. There\u2019s the upside down cross, the deep voiced demon, the faith shaken priest, the young inexperienced priest, and so on.<\/p>\n

While I appreciated that the movie ends up being so much more than about a simple possession, the mystery involving the central demonic entity is also tedious to sit through. There simply isn\u2019t enough interesting exposition or compelling drama, even in spite of some fleeting moments of eeriness. I liked the scene in the bed with the disembodied hands quite a lot. Russell Crowe seems to be sleep walking through much of this performance (why didn\u2019t they cast a Spanish actor?), while Daniel Zovatto does his best to salvage his role of Father Esquibel. If anything, Zovatto is a redeeming trait of the film, giving his all in such a thinly written character.<\/p>\n

Director Avery\u2019s film is dull and lacks any kind of real tension or sense of terror, and a lot of the big scares lean too heavily on CGI. There\u2019s no build up, the pay off is limp, and all hints at a sequel left me generally listless. It\u2019s too bad since we\u2019re over due for a great possession horror film.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It feels a lot like the studios behind \u201cThe Pope\u2019s Exorcist\u201d is intent, or at least trying, to build a new horror hero in the vein of the Warrens a la \u201cThe Conjuring.\u201d While normally I would never root for a film to fail, I hope we don\u2019t get any sequels because I can\u2019t picture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,302,2749,477,703,793,834,1087],"class_list":["post-39481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-adaptation","tag-drama","tag-exorcism","tag-horror","tag-mystery","tag-possession","tag-religion","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39481"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39483,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39481\/revisions\/39483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}