Absolutely Brilliant!

Absolutely brilliant

A Masterpiece!

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This movie was a waste of time and money. It shouldn't be under horror films at all. It had no scary or creepy parts, in my opinion. The scariest thing about the whole movie is that throughout the movie, it says "this is a real exorcism, this is a real conversation with such and such". For all we know, the exorcisms were probably just mentally ill people. The last exorcism was most likely a contortionist. All the people really did was scream and or run around. I don't even recall them speaking. It's definitely one of the worst movies I have ever seen. It's definitely in the top 5 worst. Just, don't waste your time on it.

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.

Let me warn all those, that wish to see this "documentary" unspoiled, before I start into the review itself. Read no further as there will be spoilers and I would like you all to see it for what it is and not influenced by my opinions. What I will say though, for those who would like to know my opinion before they watch it is this: I believe this is truly one of the worst pieces of moving picture out there. It's utter stupidity and blatant disregard for the intelligence of the viewers is staggering.So let's start. This is supposed to be a documentary about an American director trying to uncover the truth about exorcism and evil in the Vatican. Many a movie have been made about this, yet it is still a topic shrouded in mystery. Nobody knows much, everybody is just guessing. OK, I can see why a documentary style movie would be appealing in the light of the modern trend of making "found footage" horror movies. The problem is, that even a movie, that acts like found footage / "actual reality" needs to be thought through and prepared well, so that it can actually look like real. The details often make the reality believable. When watching this movie I got my first laughs and "What the hell?'s" in the first 5 minutes. The acting/non-acting is sterile, the conversations are just artificial, there is no energy flow, no life in them, they feel like a bad try at the first rehearsal in a voluntary theater. They look like bad actors, trying to act like they are not acting. Unfortunately this is seen through the whole movie.The moment I got really angry was the part where they watch the "black mass". Somehow they got hold of a victim of some sort of a crime. They get info about some sort of Vatican sect doing Black masses on Friday nights. They watch from distance, big bonfire burning bright with flames high, ritualistic atmosphere is present. Suddenly they try to move to get closer, the camera is pointed away from the action and in a few seconds focuses back on the people. Unfortunately enough, although the re-positioning took only a few seconds they appeared at least twice as close as before, with the angle changed significantly. This kind of movement in secret so as to remain unseen and unheard, would take a filming crew a few minutes, not mere seconds, yet the director obviously didn't worry about it. What he didn't worry about either was the fact, that after just a few seconds of moving, the fire suddenly burned a lot less, like a half an hour of shooting passed in between. At one point someone suggests to call the police. You cannot hear anybody dialing, nor calling. Then suddenly the participants notice the filming crew and start chasing them. Here it becomes really stupid. The crew runs away with cameras rolling. During the whole chaos and camera shaking wildly from all the running, for a few seconds, the one holding it, conveniently points it backwards steadily enough for you to notice the chasers :). They run for 35 seconds, before they get to a major road with buildings and lights everywhere, with the police just arriving. Now to get all that in relation to time. Exactly 50 seconds after it was suggested to call the police, they were discovered and started running. They ran about 35 seconds (which could mean about 250 meters, maybe 300?). The police was already arriving at the place they ran to. It took about 1 minute and 25 seconds for the police to arrive. I have yet to see a police force to have this kind of response time. Secondly, if someone is trying to tell me, that a super secret Vatican sect, that worships the devil or whatever, does these black masses out in the open about 200 - 300 meters away from a major road with lights and everything and nobody has yet even confirmed their existence, then they must think very low of my intelligence. And even when no one calls the police, they arrive 85 seconds after it being suggested to call them? It would take that long to get transferred to the right operator in most countries...Unfortunately this is only one short scene from the movie, quite close to beginning even and it already made me furious. This trend keeps going throughout the whole movie. The last big scene of the movie is something I can only call "the bad contortionist gig". As it goes with exorcisms, every one of them needs a nice case of the devil contorting the body in uncomfortable ways. I have to say that short of putting my leg over my head, I could probably do everything shown. They even used old kid's tricks like the one where you put your palm flat on the ground, arm straight up and you rotate the palm 360 degrees. Search youtube for "360 Degree Arm Twist Technique" and you'll get the idea how low they had to sink, to add some "effects" in the movie (of course adding the nasty "joint snapping sound" to add some nastiness to it).In the end: I recommend this move as a "How you should NOT make movies or documentaries" learning material. For me, this was truly one of the worst movies ever witnessed and I give it 1/10 points. VERY AWFUL! Don't watch it, if you hate being insulted from the screen...

You have to be pretty lax and generous when it comes to reviewing a horror film, but I had to chime in on this one. The timing of the scares were off. It had its moments where it could have been truly horrifying but then it went back to the drag of the exorcism rites. Horrible makeup on the possessed people.The final scene involving a man who contorted his body clearly went way over the top. I wasn't sure if I was watching an advanced yoga course or a possession. The only frightening part of the movie was when it came to the house scene, and even then that was another let down. Wasted potential but hey at least the Italian countryside was beautiful.