The Pope’s Exorcist is a 2023 release by Sony Pictures, directed by Julius Avery, and stars Russell Crowe, Daniel Zovatto, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney, Alex Essoe, and Laurel Marsden. This story was LOOSELY based on a true story (which any horror movie that’s based on true events is loosely based, spoiler alert). Anyways, the movie followed Russell Crowe’s character Father Gabriele Amorth, the real-life chief exorcist of the Vatican for many years, as he attempts to battle evil and innocence-possessing demons wherever he’s called. He is really in for the battle of his life though as he travels to Spain to rid an American boy of a demon and free him, his mom, and sister from the clutches of evil. Things are not as easy as they normally are for Gabe, the demon (who calls himself Asmodeus, the king of Hell) seems to know his and his helper priest, Father Esquibel’s, every regret, fear, and embarrassment and uses it to his advantage every chance he gets.
This movie was entertaining and kept me thoroughly engaged throughout, but that’s not to say it was a perfect film by any means. Unsurprisingly, Russell Crowe stole the show here as a vespa riding, whiskey drinking, demon fighting, badass priest and did a great job at mixing in quick bits of humor to a very serious and scary situation. There felt like a lot of varying elements at play in this movie though too, almost so much that it got a bit convoluted, and some things felt unnecessary. Without giving too much context or too much away, the main story involved the boy who was possessed by a demon that was released from under their house during construction, that in itself involved an ancient cover up from the Catholic Church and the Spanish Inquisition. Then some of the side stories included the Catholic Church attempting to revoke Father Amorth’s (Crowe) position as chief exorcist and rid the church of exorcisms altogether, the past trauma of both Amorth and Esquibel and the stories behind that, the family’s past and the reason the boy was weakened and traumatized enough to be possessed, just almost too much for an hour and forty minutes of film but they found a way to wrap it all up in respectable enough form and not feel too watered down.
Something else that could come off as a gripe but didn’t really bother me was the way the demon itself was portrayed. I wouldn’t necessarily call the portrayal of the demon through the boy as “scary”; he was more of a trash talker who attempted to get under their skin and dig at their past shortcomings or regrets, especially Amorth. The relationship and battle between Amorth and Asmodeus was like watching Goku battle Frieza or something. The demon came off to me like a mix of Gozer from the Ghostbusters and a Dragonball Z villain, which was an interesting and somewhat fun take to make him appear more villainous than the normal eerie, but I’m not sure that’s what they were actually going for or not. Overall, it’s not a must or anytime soon per say but I would watch this again sometime. Crowe’s job as Father Amorth is fun and makes up for some of what the film lacks in, it isn’t necessarily scary, but it is a fun and interesting take on the whole Catholic Church and exorcisms thing we’ve seen so many times. I’m deep into my horror movie list for Halloween season now and have been contemplating doing more fun lists and rankings posts in general for my blog soon so I’m excited about that, but in the meantime, I’ll be back soon with more reviews of new horror movies this season and reviews of wrestling shows as they happen!
