The Pope's Exorcist (2023)

Like everyone, my mood can decide how I respond to a movie. Catch me on a good day and I may be receptive and kind. Catch me on a bad day and the film may have to work a lot harder to get me to warm to it. The Pope’s Exorcist caught me on a very good day. That is the only way I can explain why I enjoyed it so much.

Russell Crowe, going all out with his Italian accent, plays Father Gabriel Amorth, the titular character. He can battle demons whenever the need arises, but he can also spot other problems, and deal with them accordingly. When a family starts to have a serious problem, in the shape of the youngest member being possessed by a demon who demands an encounter with Father Amorth, the stage is set for the kind of epic battle of wills that can only end when souls are completely saved. Or completely damned.

Directed by Julius Avery (who did the excellent Overlord and the not-so-excellent Samaritan), this is everything you think it is going to be, a slick horror movie with dollops of CGI used to show demon activity, a BIG performance from Crowe, and lots of moments that feel highly derivative.

Writers Michael Petroni, Evan Spiliotopolous, and others who helped form the main story, are aware that their central character comes with a whole load of horror movie baggage (it won’t take anyone long to find out why he is such a notable figure in the horror genre), and they don’t shy away from moments that will feel familiar to anyone with a moderate interest in the genre. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the script leans heavily into the familiar, using a lot of standard horror movie moments as a background that highlights the humour and personality of the central character, and that proves to be a surprisingly good approach.

Crowe is a lot of fun here, keeping a twinkle in his eye and a wry grin on his face right up until the second that things get intense and dangerous. He seems to be having a blast, and his amusement and energy are infectious. Alex Essoe, Peter Desouza-Feighoney, and Laurel Marsden are the family members who end up trying to fend off a demonic onslaught, with both Essoe and Marsden doing great work while Desouza-Feighoney seems to have been picked for his suitability with the practical and digital effects. Daniel Zovatto is your typical inexperienced “assistant”, aka the young priest to fight alongside the old priest, and he’s fine, but bonus points go to whoever decided to cast Franco Nero as his Holiness himself, the Pope. He isn’t onscreen often, but he appears just often enough to raise a smile.

I rolled my eyes when The Pope’s Exorcist began, and I rolled my eyes with every new “revelation”. But I was also smiling as I rolled my eyes. And, maybe because I was in a very good mood, I soon realised that I was rolling my eyes a bit less and smiling a bit more, despite the standard CGI tricks and the hugely predictable third act. I enjoyed this. I would watch it again. I would also definitely watch any sequel based around Crowe’s portrayal of this character.

7/10

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The Drone (2019)

If you're going to watch one movie about a possessed killer drone then it may as well be this one, a film that does a lot better with the premise than, for example, the recent reboot of Child's Play (there are a number of similarities here), and one that generally plays out much better than it probably should.

Neil Sandilands is "The Violator", a man who uses a drone to spy on females before making them his victims. Cornered by the police, the film starts off showing him being killed while holding on to his precious drone. There's an incident, of course, that puts his soul into that of the flying object, which then eventually ends up on the doorstep of a married couple, Chris (John Brotherton) and Rachel (Alex Essoe). That's when things start to get problematic, to say the least.

Directed by Jordan Rubin, who also co-wrote the script with Al and Jon Kaplan, this may not be as obviously hilarious throughout as one of their previous collaborations, Zombeavers, but it once again shows how the group have a real knack for taking a potentially ridiculous premise and managing to navigate the perfect tone throughout. The Drone starts off fairly light, despite a couple of death scenes within the first ten minutes, and it has a sense of mischief that works very nicely as small odd occurrences start to confuse the leads.

Brotherton and Essoe are both excellent in their roles, working well with one another and having a believable chemistry. Although not onscreen for long, Sandilands is allowed to make such a strong impression at the start that he casts a shadow over every minute the drone is present. Anita Briem is a lot of fun as an inappropriately flirtatious neighbour, Rex Linn does a decent enough job as a detective eventually called in to investigate the situation, and Christopher Matthew Cook somehow manages to keep a straight face during scenes in which the drone attempts to communicate with him and show him that he is actually his brother.

If you have read all of this review so far and laughed at the sheer preposterousness of the main premise, fear not. Rubin and the Kaplans are well aware of that. They play everything with a small sheen of self-awareness throughout, not stopping to point out anything in particular, but making the fun characters observe certain things, and allowing the journey to realisation to be littered with small moments of characters balking at the real explanation of events. It's a fine line, and walked well by all involved. The leads are fun and likeable, but the main premise is actually played pretty straight.

It helps that the pacing is perfect. The 82-minute runtime means it doesn't overstay its welcome. You get the set up, you get the occasional deaths, and then you get a second half that starts to build up both the bodycount and the very real threat to the leads.

Far from a perfect film, but kind of perfect entertainment (if you know what I mean). The Drone is recommended if you want a fun distraction that clocks in under an hour and a half.

7/10

Doctor Sleep (2019)

I don't think anyone was overly excited when Stephen King announced that he was releasing a belated sequel to The Shining. It was a story that was all done, and nothing else needed added to it. Yet King wanted to know more, he wanted to check in on the man that young Danny Torrance became, the man who must have struggled throughout his life to process all he had gone through. We'll come back to this point in a minute.

Directed, and adapted into screenplay form, by Mike Flanagan, one of my favourite people working in the horror genre lately, the movie version of Doctor Sleep is like a box full of hyperactive kittens. There's a visual appeal, there's a worry as things keep moving and you think one or two might run away and hide somewhere, and there's a transition from happiness to slight discomfort as tiny paws produce tiny claws while a brave little body starts to climb up your legs.

Ewan McGregor plays Danny Torrance, a man still battling ghosts and demons of his past. He's aided in this by the spirit of Dick Halloran (played this time around by Carl Lumbly). He also tries to aid himself with lots and lots of alcohol. While making a serious attempt to straighten his life out, and finally passing some years in relative contentment, Danny ends up on the receiving end of some messages from a young girl named Abra (Kyliegh Curran). Abra also shines, and shines strong, which brings her to the attention of Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) and her friends, a group of powerful entities who increase their lifespan by taking the lifeforce from those who shine. Danny needs to put himself back in a position he thought he would be able to avoid for the rest of his life, and that may also involve a trip back to The Overlook Hotel.

The more I think about Doctor Sleep, the more I find to like about it. Flanagan gave himself the unenviable task of tying together The Shining movie, The Shining novel, and the main source material (which I have yet to read), in a way that would try to please everyone, but could end up pleasing no one, and he's done a remarkable job, in that regard.

I always say that Stephen King tales are harder to adapt when most of the content belongs in the heads of certain characters. See Dreamcatcher, for example. Or, y'know, don't. But Flanagan proved that he could work around that with his superb adaptation of Gerald's Game, and he tries hard to make this work. It's a bigger challenge this time. Different people have different headspace environments here, and psychic conversations are always tricky to convey without either the actors looking silly or the momentum of the movie grinding to a halt.

The other challenge is, of course, reworking the famous imagery film fans all know and love from The Shining. Making the wise decision to recreate certain moments with new actors portraying the characters in ways that are in line with what we've seen already, but absolutely not just impressions of previous performances, Flanagan gets this all just right. Lumbly is a wonderful Halloran, Alex Essoe is very good as Wendy Torrance, and Henry Thomas is a decent Jack, despite coming closest to imitation (perhaps because Jack felt quite like, well, JACK).

For those giving us all new portrayals of characters, McGregor does okay, but is the weakest link. Whether it's the script or his own take on it (and I usually find McGregor to be a very good actor), he never feels quite right in the role of Danny, and is overshadowed in any scenes he shares with the excellent young Curran, and even Cliff Curtis and Bruce Greenwood, who are both very welcome in small supporting roles. Ferguson makes up for her inconsistent accent with a physical performance that displays her character as one light of touch until it is time to rip open "a meal". The only other disappointment with Ferguson is that her character takes up more screentime than the brilliant Emily Alyn Lind. Lind, playing a young woman who can control the minds of most people around her, is arguably the most terrifying figure onscreen, due to the careless way she will wield her power without a second thought.

A dark fantasy drama rather than an outright horror, in my view (although labels are a constant source of frustration for us genre fans), Doctor Sleep may disappoint anyone looking for proper scares, or some gore, or even a hair-raising atmosphere. Sadly, it lacks all of those things. But it still manages to be a decent watch as you invest in the characters and root for them to overcome the many obstacles in their path.

Which brings me back to what I referred to at the start of this review. King wrote his novel because he got curious about Danny, and what kind of life he would lead. He wanted to check in on him, psychological scars and all. The film starts off with this as a focus. I am sure that Flanagan would argue it never moves far away from that, but it does. I was drawn in to the first scenes with McGregor, already anxious for him as he picked the absolute wrong ways to numb his pain, and that journey leads up to the halfway point of the film, before then veering off to drag us along on a psychic horror adventure. The second half isn't necessarily a worse film, not in and of itself, but it's just a shame that what started as an exploration of ghosts and painful memories becomes a tale of ghouls and fresh wounds, and we already have a lot more of the latter than the former.

For the details dotted throughout, for the many little touches that will please King fans, and for the exploration of the troubled and assaulted mental state of a survivor, this is probably still worth your time, even at two and a half hours. A reserved recommendation.

6/10

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Bonus Review: Starry Eyes (2014)

Starry Eyes is a smart, disturbing horror movie that cuts away a layer of plastic coating to show the flesh and bone of wannabe stars. That flesh and bone can be, more often than not, dead and broken, but it's still there. It still makes up part of a business constructed on hopes, chance, exploitation, entitlement, and vanity. Not ALL of it is that way, but most of it is.

Alex Essoe is the young woman who keeps trying to battle her way through her dayjob, while simultaneously looking for that big break into the movie business. She ends up auditioning for a breakthrough role with a couple of people who insist on pushing her way beyond her comfort zone. As the process moves further along, things get stranger and stranger. But it IS a great part.

Playing out like a cross between "Son Of Celluloid" (from the incomparable Books Of Blood, written by Clive Barker), Mulholland Dr. and any number of Cronenberg movies, Starry Eyes is a bold movie that won't be for everyone. Thankfully, those who like it should REALLY like it.

Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer share both the writing and directing duties, which allows them to give each other a pat on the back. There may be moments of surreal madness here and there, especially in the third act, but it's all held together by a sharp script, one that constantly delivers seemingly innocent lines of dialogue all coated in a thing film of venom.

But that script would be nothing without the capable talents of the main performers, who help to clarify the meaning of each sentence, and even each word, uttered. Their body language turns almost every compliment upside down, and makes every innocent question an exploratory probe for anything that can be exploited. Essoe is the centrepiece, of course, and gives the kind of brilliant, brave performance that the film deserves. Pat Healy and Noah Segan both do fine with supporting roles. Both actors probably rank as the most recognisable faces in the cast, and both are given one or two great scenes apiece. Maria Olsen and Marc Senter are suitably off-kilter as the people looking to cast a movie, and Louis Dezseran is slightly creepy and able to make your skin crawl even as he flashes his showbiz grin and attempts to convince Essoe's character that he can help her out if he knows that she's willing to go further than anyone else. Amanda Fuller, Fabianne Therese, Shane Coffey, Natalie Castillo, and Nick Simmons flesh out the cast, all portraying young hopefuls who want to break into the world of movies, but hopefully on their own terms.

Add the moody score by Jonathan Snipes, impressive work on every technical aspect (from cinematography to editing to lighting, etc.), and an ending that manages to leave you thinking about everything without also becoming frustrated, and you have something pretty special. In fact, it's my new favourite horror of the year, and I highly recommend it to all genre fans who are willing to try something a bit different from the norm.

9/10

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