Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * *

Cast: Russell Crowe, Daniel Zovatto, Alex Essoe, Franco Nero, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Laural Marsden, Cornell John, Ryan O’Grady, Ralph Ineson.

All the devils are here…or as cinema would have you believe.

The fact that William Friedkin’s 1973 classic The Exorcist is lauded as highly as it should not be seen as an open door for others to attempt to match its ferocity of film making in a subject matter that leaves little to the imagination and at times a bad taste in the mouth as its religious fervour is one of corruptibility in the face of cinematic dogma.

Possession is all the rage, and the devils are plenty enough to keep cinema talking for generations; the trouble is that there is absolutely nothing to new to say that might further edify the debate on how the church, its own house full of demons, deals with the notion of humanity being enslaved by that which it classes as the fallen angels who are part of the Nephilim.

The Pope’s Exorcist at least does pay attention to the human cost of one of Rome’s more eclectic priests, colourful, and at least interesting enough to have his work transferred to that of a film in which Russell Crowe is trusted to portray a member of the clergy with subtly and intrigue. Trusted does not always qualify or transfer though as success and what transpires is a film that attempts to be the answer to a bully’s question but has little of substance to its structure to give it anything other than its lunch money for the following week and permission to be wailed upon until the end of term.

It is a shame, but of all the horror tropes and sub genres that can be placed before the discerning viewer, the sense of possession by a demon or the Devil is arguably one that in age of reason should just be abandoned, for the stigma of such is one that does cinema and the wider population no favours.

A film that pales into the background, The Pope’s Exorcist is an unpalatable stereotype too far.

Ian D. Hall