The power of Christ compels a bunch of ticked-off exorcists to publicly condemn Russell Crowe‘s new movie.
In The Pope’s Exorcist, the Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World actor plays Father Gabriele Amorth, who served as the chief exorcist of the Vatican. He also helped found the International Association of Exorcists, which has criticized the title of the film for being “pretentious.”
In a statement, the group wrote that “watching the film’s trailer confirms, if anything were needed, not only its splatter cinema quality, a real sub-genre of horror cinema, but its unreliability on such a delicate and relevant topic.” The exorcism depicted in the film “becomes a show aimed at arousing strong and unhealthy emotions, thanks to a gloomy scenography, with sound effects such as to arouse only anxiety, restlessness and fear in the spectator.”
The end result of The Pope’s Exorcist, the IAE concluded, is “to instill the conviction that exorcism is an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon, whose only protagonist is the devil, whose violent reactions can be faced with great difficulty; which is the exact opposite of what occurs in the context of exorcism celebrated in the Catholic Church in obedience to the directives imparted by it.”
“The Pope’s Exorcist: an abnormal, monstrous, and frightening phenomenon” is a good pull quote. I’m now more excited than ever to see it.
The Pope’s Exorcist opens on April 14.
(Via the Guardian)