31 Days of Halloween: The Pope's Exorcist

2023, Julius Avery (Samaritan) -- Netflix

"Catholic Horror" or at the very least, "Religious Horror" is a dominant sub-genre in the West. Its interesting, as it comes with its own built-in trappings, that require a pre-existing understanding of the inherent structural elements. I wonder what a new-comer to the west, even one with a strong exposure to our pop culture, makes of movies about demonic possession, Catholic exorcists and sin. No no, I get that religious fervour and rigid rulesets is common enough in almost all cultures, but the accoutrement of Catholic horror always rely on knowledge of it, to give it any assemblance of meaning. 

Father Gabriel Amorth, or Gabriele (Russel Crow, Kraven the Hunter) in his native Italian and Gabe to the American brained demon, is the top-tier exorcist working directly for The Pope, out of The Vatican. He's jovial, irreverent and loves to scoot around Rome on his little put-put scooter, possibly a Vespa. Its not an eBike as its the 80s so gasoline all the way. The preamble gives us his technique & personality, commenting on the challenges of dealing with most exorcism cases being an issue of mental health, vs the few that involves real demons. Gabe prefers to let mental health professionals deal with cases of their expertise, but sometimes, like in the preamble's case, he just uses subterfuge to deal with it himself. He is also dealing with significant guilt over the time he should have just intervened, for his punting of the case to doctors led to  the girl's suicide. Finally, the preamble shows how the "modern Church" doesn't care for his actual demon fighting, and wants his role dismissed, and is taking advantage of the Pope's infirm state to depose him.

He is drawn to Spain, where an American family has inherited an abbey and is in the midst of renovating it for re-sale. This is not your typical fixer-upper, but  an ancient medieval structure full of secrets. The family, as per usual, comes with trauma in tow -- the abbey had been in the father's family, and he had died tragically in a car accident, his death witnessed by his young son, who has been mute since. Tragedy opens one's soul up to demonic possession, Gabriele says. So, when one of the workers cracks up a hidden room in the alcoves of the basement, something sneaks out and inhabits the boy. Thus, Gabriele is called in.

All the familiar religious focused possession trappings are there. Experienced Gabriele has to explain things to the local padre Esquibel (Daniel Zovatto, Station Eleven), a man with his own sinful burdens. And soon after being introduced, Gabriele realizes this is no normal demon possessing the child. There is something going on here, related to the history of the abbey. While the Pope (Franco Nero, Django) himself researches the place's history back in The Vatican, Gabriele roots around in the basement, finding hidden chambers galore. 

The demon escalates things, pointing directly at Gabriele, hinting the demon is on a personal vendetta against the exorcist. All Gabriele feels he has to do is find out the demon's name, and he can end this all. But when he does so, he finds out this is Asmodeus, a general in Satan's army, but more so he finds out  the truth of the abbey, that it had been the seat of the Inquisition's start, and that beginning was due to the possession of a religious leader by Asmodeus. Combined Vatican forces had sealed the demon in the cellars, ending the Inquisition's sacrilegious rein. Asmodeus needs Gabriele's body so he can begin that corruption again.

The idea of this movie is more interesting to me, than the execution. Its feasible enough, more than capable of a production with good effects and settings. The placement of Russell Crowe as an Italian Exorcist was ... odd, and the man does have a lot of fun playing the character, which all makes more sense when its revealed at the end that Gabriele Amorth was a real man, and this movie was based on his published books. The movie is a mix of what we would expect from a "real" exorcist, as well as some of the commentary around the whole idea. The movie ends with a hint that this could be a franchise as Gabriele pusued 199 other major demons / fallen angels, in their locked away places around the world. Hello Hollywood, could you just not? Enough of the franchise ideal, your purple suited ideas are so 15 years ago.