The Vatican Exorcisms

Or found footage or shaky cam or whatever else you want to call it. One thing is for sure: It is low budget and it shows. That doesn't mean that some of the "exorcisms" does not look interesting in itself. But it feels like an episodic (and is kind of build that way too) TV show, where you get the exorcism of the week segment ... over and over again. Until the last one of course ... Not that the end of the movie itself will satisfy people either.

If you give the filmmakers a break for the low budget, I'm not sure if you'll give them one for the weak structure this has. Also the camera shaking can make you dizzy or at least annoy and unnerve you a lot. It is called horror, but sometimes that "works" for all the wrong reasons in this movie ...

Honestly, lots and lots, of very blurred shots, of what I can only describe as some of the most boring "possessed" people. Has the Devil got nothing better to do than inhabit the mentally ill and the old?

I thought it was actually a pretty good film. I'm not typically a fan of these found footage movies, but this one worked. There is no over the top special effects and the scare moments are actually scary because they aren't made unrealistic by too many special effects. The contortionist in one of the scenes added a terrific level of creepiness. The only criticism I really have is the use of the scary music takes you away from the idea that this might actually be a "found footage movie. The acting was decent and the story was good. Glad I took a chance on this one. I don't know why it's getting bad reviews, people don't appreciate something without a million dollars of special effects.

Accompanied by Padre Luigi, a true exorcist, Joe Marino travels to the south of Italy, a place where the sacred and profane have always lived together, where Christian rituals are inextricably linked to the pagan ones.

First, a brief note on exorcism films: whether or not there were films about exorcism prior to "The Exorcist", that film set a benchmark that all others must now contend with. There are two ways to approach this: try to make a better film, or try to make a different film. The first approach almost always fails. The second one fails as well, though slightly less often. Wisely, this film took that second route.

And there is some good stuff in here: filming in Italy was a good idea, and using the stolen papers of Pope Benedict as a reference was also clever. Even though few people are going to believe this is a real documentary, they set up a solid foundation to work from. Inject enough fact into your fiction, and people are going to be intrigued.

There is, however, also bad stuff: mostly the faux documentary style. Again, if it could be passed off as real, that might be interesting. But it never reaches that level. And then it ends up in the same place as many other exorcism films from the past five years, several of which have used POV or a documentary style. And few do it well. The only good one in recent memory is "Grace: The Possession" (2014), though even "The Last Exorcism" (2010) had its merits.

This is not going to go down as a great film or even one of the better exorcism films. While it has good intentions and the creators had good ideas, the execution falls fall short of the mark.

I gave it a chance, but a lot of shouting, it bothered me a lot, the prayers and such, just ... This cover scares me more than the movie, but just in case I decided to watch it in the morning, right ... Even trying to be one realistic documentary, it didn't work ... A lot of shouting for nothing ...