Directed by Julius Avery, The Pope’s Exorcist follows the head exorcist of the Vatican, Gabriel Amorth (Russel Crowe). In the Opening scene we see him performing an exorcism in a small town on a man who was acting strange and was speaking English despite having never spoken it before, very much your typical exorcist movie cliché. A board of 4 bishops and a cardinal then speak with Amorth about exorcisms, possessions, and mental health issues, telling him he will need to step down because evil and demons aren’t actually real and the church needs to progress with the times. To a point Amorth even agrees with them, stating 98% of the time when he’s called to investigate a possession it’s not actually a possession and he helps refer the family to an appropriate doctor. He even admits the exorcism we witnessed during the movie’s open wasn’t actually a possession.

With our protagonist established, we cut to the Spanish countryside, where Julia (Alex Essoe) and her kids are on a sort of vacation, going to stay at an old run down abbey that they’re paying to have fixed up. Fixing up and selling the abbey was supposed to be closure as it had been in her husbands family for generations and he passed away about a year prior. As could be expected, shortly after moving in the youngest child Henry (Peter DeSouza-Freighoney) was possessed. Julia consulted doctors who found everything to be fine and determined it must just be trauma induced psychosis. After returning to the abbey, in a deep vocal-fry, Henry said, “Bring me the priest!” Somewhat hilariously, after the local priest Father Esquibel (Daniel Zovatto) shows up and goes to speak with him, he is thrown from the room into a glass cabinet and we hear Henry yell, “Wrong priest!” By far my favorite line.

Amorth heads to the abbey, speaks with Esquibel and they begin attempting to speak with and exorcise the demon possessing Henry. After it becomes evident that they need to do more digging and try to find out more about what’s going on, and the name of the demon, Amorth and Esquibel uncover a well full of skeletons and a torture chamber containing books and diaries revealing dark secrets not just about the abbey they’re in but also about a conspiracy the Vatican covered up.

Going into this film I had heard nothing about it, and was expecting something full of jump scares desperately trying to hold onto an audience’s waning attention. Much to my delight the jump scares were minimal, the projectile vomit was contained to a minimum one occasion (and you probably won’t guess who does it). Avery did well keeping this interesting and suspenseful, though I wish the final moments of Amorth and Esquibel dealing with the demon felt more substantial, instead it just felt a little rushed and easy.

The movie was well shot, and lines well delivered, though I’d have a hard time giving this anything more than 7 stars. I don’t think I’d go out of my way to watch this a second time, but its by no means a bad movie.