Are you looking forward to some real church shock again and are you sad that Russell Crowe won’t be in “Gladiator 2”? Then take comfort with The Pope’s Exorcist, in which the mime takes on demonic powers.
Exorcism films are part of the basic repertoire of horror cinema. It feels like there’s at least one new movie hitting theaters every year. Only at the end of last year, “The Devil’s Light” was about a young nun who wants to assert herself in the male domain of the exorcism job and has to contend with demonic and sometimes very earthly opposition. Now announces itself with the first trailer for “The Pope’s exorcist” the next strip of this type is already up – and it is with “Gladiator” star Russell Crowe and the “Django” actor Frank Nero first class staff too.
As befits a decent film about exorcising demons, the trailer already indicates that this film is not just pure fiction, but that what is shown is based on the memories and writings of Gabriele Amorth, who from 1986 has used the dubious title of the official exorcists of the Diocese of Rome and thus of the Pope. The actual veracity of the film can, of course, still be questioned – but a real Vatican creeper is doubly fun if we don’t just imagine the demons on screen…
And that’s what The Pope’s Exorcist is about
Father Gabriele Amorth (Russell Crowe) could easily be described as a progressive exorcist, as the demonic exorcist on behalf of the Pope (Franco Nero) refers over 98 percent of cases to medical or psychiatric care. But with the remaining two percent, Amorth encounters what he calls “pure evil.”
A new case of obsession leads the father to a boy’s (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) bedside. The entity imprisoned within him had explicitly requested Gabriele Amorth. But there seems to be more to the demonic plague than the priest initially suspects, for apparently this demon has often sought contact with the Roman Catholic Church – although there is nothing about this in the scriptures. What does the creature want from the chief exorcist?
Harry Potter and yoga
Incidentally, Amorth himself passed away in 2016 at the age of 91. In his own words, he himself performed more than 100,000 rituals to exorcise demonic powers. He also led the International Association of Exorcists for many years and, shortly before his death, ensured that it still has firm canonical status. The top exorcist also made bizarre headlines again and again: for example, he revealed that yoga training and the “Harry Potter” books were, in his opinion, the work of the devil.
“The Pope’s Exorcist” opens in German cinemas on April 6, 2023. Julius Avery, who most recently directed Sylvester Stallone’s superhero action film Samaritan, is directing. For the public transport fans among you, we have also integrated the trailer here in the original English:
