I went into this film with an open mind. The premise was excellent, and Father Amorth himself seemed to be a genuine, affable chap and having the director of The Exorcist himself direct this I was hoping for an awful lot more than what we got.
The story follows an Italian lady called 'Christina' who is allegedly possessed, and has had multiple exorcisms over the years by Father Amorth. We follow him as he performs an exorcism on Christina, but what we get is about as clear as mud.
Firstly, the room is full of family members, which in the case of an exorcism, would never happen as once the evil is excised, it would simply go onto another person. When she start getting possessed, all we get is a manic grin, where she is rocking back and forth and when the 'voice' manifests, I am afraid that I didn't believe it one bit. Music over the background allows manipulation to occur of other sounds, and to be honest, it looked like someone having a manic moment, maybe even hysteria. Not once did I ever think possession. Once this has all occurred, the multitude of family members are blessed before leaving. After all this, you get another 'story' from the director on how he had a further encounter with Christine and her husband in a church, but very conveniently, he didn't have a camera or any form of recording device with him. The story he told was so fantastical and out there, and basing my views on what I previously watched, I don't believe a word of it.
This had the scope to be very thought provoking, to be something to maybe align faith, but in the end all it did was create disbelief and cynicism and actually makes the director a bit of a laughing stock.
The story follows an Italian lady called 'Christina' who is allegedly possessed, and has had multiple exorcisms over the years by Father Amorth. We follow him as he performs an exorcism on Christina, but what we get is about as clear as mud.
Firstly, the room is full of family members, which in the case of an exorcism, would never happen as once the evil is excised, it would simply go onto another person. When she start getting possessed, all we get is a manic grin, where she is rocking back and forth and when the 'voice' manifests, I am afraid that I didn't believe it one bit. Music over the background allows manipulation to occur of other sounds, and to be honest, it looked like someone having a manic moment, maybe even hysteria. Not once did I ever think possession. Once this has all occurred, the multitude of family members are blessed before leaving. After all this, you get another 'story' from the director on how he had a further encounter with Christine and her husband in a church, but very conveniently, he didn't have a camera or any form of recording device with him. The story he told was so fantastical and out there, and basing my views on what I previously watched, I don't believe a word of it.
This had the scope to be very thought provoking, to be something to maybe align faith, but in the end all it did was create disbelief and cynicism and actually makes the director a bit of a laughing stock.