Russell Crowe against the devil and not a Vespa in sight.
Horror films about possession tend to be pretty boring, in part because they often try too hard to copy William Friedkin’s. The Exorcist (1973) in one way or another. The innocent victim, the troubled man of faith, the gross supernatural antics of vile entities, the triumphant denunciation of evil. 2023 The Pope’s Exorcist dodged that bullet by finding a new twist, a sense of fun and a real personality, along with a Vespa Russell Crowe – and now Crowe is back on the chopping block for a completely unrelated exorcist story called Exorcism. But don’t be fooled by the bland title. This one also takes a path less traveled, even if its base meta can’t sustain that path as well (like a Vespa).
Anthony Miller (Crowe) is a widower, single father, failed actor and addict who can still taste the alcohol he gave up less than a year ago. He is struggling to connect with his teenage daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), who was recently suspended from school and refuses to call him dad. A pre-production incident on the set of an upcoming horror remake; He is never mentioned by name, but the movie within the movie is meant to be a remake of The Exorcist – leaves a vacancy in the lead role of a priest fighting for the soul of a young girl. Miller gets the job and brings Lee on as a personal assistant as a chance to bond, but the joy soon fades when something evil takes up residence within him. What do you do when it’s the exorcist who needs an exorcism?
There’s enough in that setup to create a fairly straightforward piece of possession horror, but terrible title aside, Exorcism He is not interested in being simple. Instead of simply letting the story unfold, the director/co-writer Joshua John Miller instead, it takes a more meta approach, both on screen and off. You see, Miller is not only a child actor back in the day, river edge (1986), almost dark (1987), but he is also the son of actor Jason Miller, who played the doomed Father Karras in The Exorcist. The film feels, in many ways, like a defensive attack on the Catholic Church and Hollywood, two imposing entities known for chewing up and spitting out the innocent. The ideas are inevitably intriguing, but the devil is in the details.
The script, by Miller and his writing partner. MA Fortin, is something of a superficial riff on the well-documented problems Friedkin’s film faced during production. It’s not about matching the real life problems they faced, but the director of The Georgetown Project – the movie within the movie title – performed here by Adam Goldberg, is portrayed as a controlling, degrading, and oblivious asshole who pressures Anthony in increasingly callous ways. Once the actor starts behaving strangely, everyone assumes that he has returned to the sauce due to stress and pressure. Let them continue to think that even after witnessing his face change before his eyes and his body float in the air, well, Hollywood people are self-centered. and stupid, apparently.
Meanwhile, the church receives a double blow, beginning with the presence of Father Conor (David Hyde Pierce) who appears on set as an advisor despite being a man who has long lacked faith in himself. It is revealed that Anthony was sexually abused by a priest when he was a child serving as an altar boy, and Miller films Anthony and Father Conor’s first meeting as if their paths had crossed before. However, nothing has been made of the implication, and the small age difference between the two actors makes it unlikely anyway, but it’s just one of many threads that feel loose and flapping in the breeze. Lee is given a romantic subplot, a younger actor (Samuel Worthington) is faced with the dilemma of replacing the decadent and unstable Anthony, and Anthony himself is tempted to return for the bottle.
Miller clearly has a lot on his mind Exorcismand more and more he’s starting to feel like the horror aspect of it all is actually the element that interests him the least. Goldberg’s director character describes the new version of him as a “psychological drama wrapped in the skin of a horror movie,” and that’s actually a fair assessment of Exorcism itself. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with that approach, but it all gets more than a little messy as the third act intensifies the horrors to which those earlier themes seem indifferent. Jump scares, shadow play, face-contorting CG aids – the beats of the genre begin to drop fast and furious as the character elements slowly diminish.
Miller and Fortin previously treated fans of the genre to 2015 The final girls, a horror comedy that takes an even more meta approach while still delivering genuine laughs, thrills, and thrills. It’s a great film, and the promise Miller showed as a director comes through here in smaller doses. In the opening, which shows a priest walking through a sinister house, the camera pulls back to reveal it as a soundstage, and it is both a great image and a provocation about the artificiality of Hollywood. However, much of it feels much less inspired, leaving the film’s tone and atmosphere more than a little unmoored. However, his camera rightly loves Crowe, and the actor once again draws attention to him as he faces issues both familial and supernatural.
Whether by original design or laborious post-production efforts (the film was shot in 2019 and has been in the can since 2020 for various reasons) Exorcism it feels like you are being pulled in opposite directions. The metaphor for all of this, whether for the all-consuming nature of Hollywood and the church or for Jason Miller’s experience during and after The ExorcistIt’s still interesting, and there’s a much more controlled view of everything that exists (probably still in JJ Miller’s head) waiting to be told. Meanwhile, the horror beats that finally take hold are too generic. Still, as things stand, those ideas and Crowe’s dedicated presence are enough of a draw here to make the film worth watching. Or you could just skip it and watch it again. The Pope’s Exorcist…
Related topics: Horror, Russell Crowe
