Exorcist movies never seem to quite wane. I suppose people in general are suckers for Good vs Evil - Bible style. Unfortunately screenwriters and directors are suckers for making bad exorcist movies.
Personally I am a sucker for exorcist movies, but I try to give a nuanced review....
Plot: tainted priest defies advice and tries to exorcize victim on his own which makes him vulnerable in ways he would never fathom.
The production company has managed to get a substantial number of investors interested in getting this movie done. Rightly so. I was pleasantly surprised by the acting and the special effects. Some reviewers complain about the quality, unjustly so. But I suppose if you decide to monitor the effects you may see some flaws, but I you focus on the movie as a whole, they hold up just fine. I have seen much worse mistakes, i.e. Mircophone in the jungle in Schwarzenegger's Predator and a fully visible tech guy in X-tro.
This exorcist movie has some new takes on the genre, such a reversed ecxorcism as well as new thoughts about the ritual of exocrcisms. There is also some semi new stuff as seen in the excellent series Evil and The Exorcist, which makes it more intersting and potent. However, the downside of this potency is that the movie is a bit too short to fit all this in. I think this movie would have improved by downplaying the occult elements the first 30-40 minutes and focused more on creating a mystery. The origin of some of the possessed "creatures" is somewhat unclear.
On the whole this is a solid movie on par with recent movies like Aaron Eckhart's Incarnate, Eric Bana's Deliver us from Evil, but substantially beneath the classic The Exorcist, Legion and The Exorcism of Emily Rose.
Since I am admittedly a sucker for this genre I rate this movie 7/10. But in some regards I agree with some of the other reviewers and to those who may not be into this genre and see this movie as a horror movie, I must be inclined to rate it 5/10. Still, a nice surprise indeed, especially since it is quite hard to make decent horror movie.
