The Exorcism

Anthony Miller (Russell Crowe) gets hired on a movie project which resembles The Exorcist (1973). He's trying to reconnect with his estranged daughter Lee Miller (Ryan Simpkins) and both are still dealing with her mother's death. In addition, Anthony has other past issues which may be resurfacing.

This project probably started with an interesting meta idea. The movie is rather muddled in the beginning, but it is mostly tired. If there is one word to describe this, it is tired. The characters are all tired. The actors are tired. The story feels tired even with its meta covering. This is dark and gloomy and tired.

I remember seeing the trailer for this movie and thinking it was some sort of sequel to The Pope's Exorcist, but its not. Its not related at all and yet it feels like the same movie. Odd!

Not sure what's going on with Russell Crowe's career. I know that some stars get older and phase out, forced to do lower value movies or take supporting roles over leads in bigger ones but what was the crime to Hollywood Russell Crowe committed to have to do such bad movies other than him getting fat?

(What? Don't act like that's not a crime in Hollywood?) From my perspective the movie is filled with well enough known names: Adam Goldberg Chole Bailey. David Hyde Pierce is in this movie! David High Pierce! I known it's been a while sense Fraser has been on the air but I feel like Miles Crane must give the movie some star power. And Sam Worthington! This was a real puzzle. Did Worthington owe someone money? Does the filmmaker have something on this dude that would get him canceled?

I can only imagine what this movie was suppose to be is sitting somewhere on a cutting room floor in Hollywood cause this is not making sense. It's amazing how someone could have watched this movie and thought this was going to fly and I can only assume what Crowe signed up for and filmed was totally different than the finished product.

I can clearly see a good idea that just was not done well at all.

This movie started out really great. A washed up, alcoholic actor gets a chance at a comeback role playing the priest in a remake of The Exorcist. But strange things are afoot. Is he still fighting his old demons in his mind, or is he fighting a real demon on set? Unfortunately, we know the answer as an opening prologue takes away that mystery before it's begun. But, let's see how it plays out.... Ooh boy, does it lose its way at the halfway point. Scenes are stitched together that make no sense, people behave as no normal person would, devastating injuries disappear, crazy behavior is blown off, a sudden fall to death - isn't? It's just ridiculous, and there's no comeuppance for the one awful character. It's like they stopped halfway through and just threw everything on the cutting room floor at the screen and then rolled the credits.

The scene setting to start was good, strong pacing and intriguing.

Unfortunately it never developed from there...loose story line, there was never any reason behind the occurrences of the film.

What relation did any of the references have to the story line? You'd have to see it for this to be a spoiler... and I don't personally think you should...

What happened to the characters?

Would I recommend this film? Simply put, no, spend your money watching something else!

It's a shame watching a film with Russell Crowe headlining and coming away from it saying.. why has he decided to star in this movie? Is this a sign his acting career has possibly seen better days?

If you want a few cheap jump scares go for it, but you've been warned!!

I was genuinely hoping some sort of 'The Pope's Exorcist' tie-in at the end as compensation for the time I wasted on this, but I can only dream.

The entire movie is a giant mess. Unsolved mysteries, forgotten characters and storylines and just dark - in terms of lighting; it was very hard to see some of the actors during some scenes.

It's neither gripping or scary. This movie is so bad that I can't get myself to even praise Crowe's performance.

I understand the production had huge hurdles to overcome but that won't even serve as an excuse for this awful film. How this managed to be green lit by so many execs etc and make it to the big screen will remain the real mystery.

As the title suggest, give this one a miss. You're actually better off not seeing it.