There is something about ageing in the business. For some, it’s a dead end. For others, it’s breaking the chains of youthful typecasting and getting their claws into some new roles. Russell Crowe is having a field day in playing crazy people in wacky b-movies. Some of them are vaguely entertaining (Julius Avery’s The Pope’s Exorcist, from 2023), some of them are just atrocious (Derrick Borte’s Unhinged, 2020). The Exorcism falls firmly into the latter category.
At the core of the movie is once again the age-old story of an estranged parent finding his way back into the heart of their kid by fighting off some supernatural creatures. There is nothing wrong with that, but you’ve got to make it interesting. But there is little in the way of Tony Miller (Crowe), a washed-up, ex-druggie, ex-alcoholic has-been actor, who just got out of rehab and is looking for a job. Equally, his daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins) is your run-of-the-mill, broken and angry college dropout with daddy issues. When Tony is offered to take over the role of a priest in an exorcism movie, things are starting to look better. Never mind the fact that the previous actor died on set under mysterious circumstances.
The very demanding and cruel director Peter (Adam Goldberg) loves gruesome monsters on. But as the viewer already sees in the opening, and Tony soon gets to experience, there is a real demon at work. For some reason as foggy as the rest of the story, he decided to build a film set inside his home. What is clear is that the demon likes to kill priests. and is particularly fond of Tony.
The cinematography and atmosphere are equally half-hearted and uninspiring. Tony and Lee inhabit what looks like a glass shoebox of a loft in New York City. And while the Big Apple might have a problem with too many high-rise buildings obscuring daylight, a place so dark is barely suitable for humans. Oh, and there is a staircase leading to an even darker, virtually pitch-black lower level. This is where most of the jump scares happen. Boo!
The production design is shabby. At times, it looks as if the lighting department had forgotten to screw to a couple of bulbs. The script is disjointed, and the dialogue is irritating. Endless, boring conversations suck all life out of this tale. The film climaxes with the titular procedure. A task just as complex as the rules of Scrabble. Tony repeatedly tells himself while rehearsing for the role of the priest: “he has to believe his lines wholeheartedly”. But he may not be able to commit to the role just yet.
The whole thing might just be a 90-minute joke on Method acting. Who knows? If only it was a little funnier.
The Exorcism is in cinemas on Friday, June 21st. On VoD on July 22nd.
