Joshua John Miller’s possession horror The Exorcism hits theatres this weekend, giving us all another dose of Religious Russell Crowe (The Nice Guys). This go-around, Crowe plays struggling actor Anthony MIller, recovering from a decade of bad press and hard living, desperate for his newest picture (an exorcism movie) to bring him back into the light. Its scares are pretty boilerplate, but it’s got a great concept and a self-aware understanding of what kind of movie it is which makes for some great moments of meta horror. Of course, above all else, it stars Russell Crowe which, for most of us, is reason alone to buy a ticket.
We’re all still living in the post-glow of Julius Avery’s surprise hit The Pope’s Exorcist. An immediate cultural sensation (if you’re consuming the right culture), Russell Crowe gave us the performance of the year as Father Gabriel Amorth, a brilliant but tortured exorcist and close personal friend of the Pope. Father Gabriel Amorth would later go on to appear in nearly every Best of The Year list worth its salt, not to mention an appearance in WrestleMania 39! Needless to say, The Exorcism had some big shoes to fill in the ever-expanding Russell Crowe vs Some Demons canon. And for good or bad, Joshua John Miller’s new possession flick was always going to be compared against a movie completely unlike his own.
“A much more subdued and psychological horror story about a cursed production.”
The Pope’s Exorcist was a wild ride, and an introduction to what is sure to become franchise competition for The Conjuring universe. While it (in all its religious superhero origin story glory) was a lower budget action horror, The Exorcism is a much more subdued and psychological horror story about confronting demons. Personal demons, professional demons, actual biblical demons- Russell Crowe’s Anthony Miller faces them all head-on in a battle of Good & Evil that threatens to consume his eternal soul and his dwindling career.
Miller, who also wrote the 2015 horror comedy The Final Girls, has a real knack for crafting a Meta story. The Final Girls brought fans into the world of a 1980s slasher, but The Exorcism plays with the concept a cursed film production. By shifting between the movie-in-a-movie, and the “real life” of the actors, the film gets to play with the expected tropes of a possession story. Despite itself also being a fairly by-the-books religious horror, the movie pokes fun at the over-worked trapping of the subgenre by showing us what a less-than-stellar version of the movie we’re actually watching would look like. Sadly, when it shifts gears from satire to serious scares, it’s kind of indistinguishable from the movies it’s parodying.
The Exorcism starts strong, coming in like a bat out of hell with some creative flourishes that really promise something new in the possession horror space. Over time it loses some of that luster despite a talented supporting cast that includes David Hyde Pierce (Wet Hot American Summer), Ryan Simpkins (Fear Street: Part Two – 1978), Chloe Bailey (A Wrinkle in Time), Sam Worthington (Terminator: Salvation), and Adam Goldberg (Saving Private Ryan).
Religious Horror has always been a bit of a challenge for me, but at times The Exorcism seemed just as bored with its own premise as I was. There is some really exceptional work done here but at every turn, just as the story was starting to come back together, I would lose faith in it again. I’m sure the first draft of this story was a no-holds-barred battle of good & evil, but what I had hoped would be another year-defining entry in the exorcism hall of fame is, unfortunately, just another commonplace Catholic creeper.
“…pokes fun at the over-worked trapping of the subgenre…”
Joshua John Miller’s The Exorcism is in theatres now! Let us know what you thought of this exorcism horror over in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord. The power of chats compels you!
