Hooptober X: The Devil Made Me Do It
#2: 3 Satan/Devil centered films (1)
Netflix

Russell Crowe hams it up as a Vespa-riding, whiskey swilling renegade priest who's also tight with the Pope. This film is surprisingly campy and Crowe carries it on his back while zipping around in his Vespa yelling "Cuckoo" to nuns. Crowe is in his scenery-chewing era and I love him for it.

Exorcism films are really overdone. None of them come close to capturing the magic and terror of THE EXORCIST. Early on it felt like THE POPE'S EXORCIST was going the same dreary route. One of the biggest failings of exorcism films is that the demonic voice of the possessed kid sounds so corny. Just giving a little kid a deep adult voice (in this case with an English accent) isn't scary and honestly pretty corny most of the time. I also need to add that the Marco Rubio-looking young priest immediately starts choking the little kid as soon as the demon starts talking shit. Zero chill.

That final act goes nutso! I got Sam Raimi vibes and some of it felt like a watered-down Evil Dead flick. We even got Father Amorth in Spain and the Pope in Rome sharing some kind of Jedi dyad while they both realized the big bad demonic plan at the same time. The ending even gives us a setup for a whole Pope's Exorcist Cinematic Universe. Sure!

Alex Essoe gives a great performance as the mom of the possessed kid. I'm glad she's still working in horror and I hope to see more of her in the genre.

I'm on the fence about this rating. It wasn't good, but it was pretty fun. So I guess my rating is somewhere between 2.5 and 3. Let's say 2.75.