The Pope's Exorcist movie review (2023) | Roger Ebert (2024)

FAQs

Is The Exorcist 2023 worth watching? ›

Green takes a strong character like Chris and, instead of adding depth, blindsides her with a disrespectful twist that feels like a disservice to the original film. The writing is terrible, leaving the story merely okay, but its blatant lack of connection to the iconic Exorcist makes it feel like a missed opportunity.

This is a decent movie. Entertaining and basically a new adaptation of the old Exorcist movie from 1973. While based on a real character the story is completely made up but at least entertaining. If you like horror type movies this may be ideal for you.

Critics Reviews

The Pope's Exorcist will certainly never go down as a classic of the genre, but it's better than it has any reason to be. Sometimes, the devil you know gets the job done just fine. Content collapsed.

The Exorcist: Believer earns points for trying to take the franchise back to its terrifying roots, but a lack of new ideas -- and scares -- make this an inauspicious start to a planned new trilogy.

The letter goes on to state that the movie takes excessive liberties in adapting Father Amorth's memoirs and that Russell Crowe's appearance and demeanor do not match the human and priestly characteristics of Father Amorth.

People were unprepared for the graphic imagery — the manipulations and helplessness of a Devil-possessed human body, the profanity coming out of the mouth of a child, the violence, and the broken-limbed scuttling spider walk. All of these things were new and truly shocking to people at the time.

Extreme violence, gore, and psychological torture. Parents need to know that The Exorcist is a terrifying 1970s horror film about a young girl who becomes demonically possessed and violent. Expect extreme gore, grotesque effects (bulging eyes, sores, etc.), and scares, and two important characters die.

It has some violence and lanaguage in a not so terrfying exorcist movie! You could say this is another exorcist movie . . . but this one is actually interesting, if not losing it by the 3rd act! For the most part, this movie has no outright terrfying scares that's going to be a lasting impression.

While the events depicted in the film may feel a bit larger-than-life bringing into question the factuality of the events, Crowe's Father Gabriele Amorth is very much inspired by a real-life figure - an Italian Catholic priest and exorcist of the same name who has claimed to have conducted more than 50,000 exorcisms.

Should Christians watch the Pope's exorcist? ›

Like most exorcism films, it exploits Christian and Catholic imagery in a way that neither meaningfully depicts it but just uses it as set dressing for supernatural mythology. Characters discuss God, confession, and temptation, and yet it doesn't feel like more than acting in a movie.

Principal photography took place from August to October 2022 in Dublin and Limerick, Ireland and Rome, Italy. Scenes were also filmed with Crowe in Trinity College in Dublin.

Amorth tries his damndest to stop the demon from taking over his body, but it ain't looking too good! He goes back to the catacombs to destroy himself and the demon, putting an end to its tyrannical reign forever.

In the late 90s, Dee Snider from Twisted Sister made a movie called Strangeland where he played an online stalker named Captain Howdy who would invite teens to parties. He would hold them prisoner in his home and perform body modification on them.

Fans still regard auteur William Friedkin's The Exorcist as the scariest and best-written horror movie of all time, even 50 years after its release. Screenwriter William Peter Blatty won an Oscar for adapting his novel, which portrays Regan MacNeill, her possession, and the desperate attempt to deliver her from evil.

The film caused controversy wherever it went because of its salacious and blasphemous religious content, including scenes of the possessed child masturbating with a crucifix, and this controversy was exacerbated by increasing reports of requests for exorcisms and strange behaviour at cinema viewings.

Hollywood superstar Russell Crowe has revealed a creepy incident that occurred while he was filming his new horror film about demonic possession. The 59-year-old Oscar winner said that after completing filming on The Pope's Exorcist one day, he found a dead bird on his door step.

Russell Crowe's latest blockbuster The Pope's Exorcist has been a huge commercial hit. The budget for the movie was $18million, and it has since made a whopping $54million at the box office since it was released in cinemas earlier this month.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office of Film and Broadcasting (USCCB-OFB) officially and publicly condemned the film as being unsuitable for a wide audience, but reviews produced for the office by priests and lay Catholics and correspondence between the Vatican and the USCCB-OFB show that the church ...

The Exorcist is one of the best movies to come out of the 70's and deserves better than slowly descending down the top 250. It's one of those essential films you have to see in order to understand what a movie truly is and this is more than a horror film.

Is The Exorcist still the scariest movie of all time? ›

It's so firmly considered the genre's gold standard that critics have since praised modern thrillers like A24's Hereditary as the “scariest film since The Exorcist.” That reputation has kept The Exorcist's legacy alive, in spite of a series of sequels ranging from mediocre to infamous, with the exception of the 1990 ...

Let's admit it if Exorcist: The Beginning camed before the first then the critics would be different. It has strong scenes, performances "the CGI could be better" but a perfect setting - country, actors and screenplay are the right choices for a well constructed Religious film like this.

Like the film, the series doesn't lean heavily on gore or jump scares to unsettle viewers. Instead, it's the demonic possession of human victims -- mostly children and teens -- that terrify.