Hustled out over Easter, Julius Avery’s papal potboiler derives brisk if well-trodden hokum from the writings of Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s demonslayer-in-chief between 1986 and 2016. The film’s Amorth is a wry old pro, finding the levity in a devilishly tricky day job; not unhelpfully, he’s played by Russell Crowe, alternating gruff Italian and Italianate English, and possibly eyeing the prospect of a late-career franchise-slash-retirement plan. Crowe is by far the film’s strongest suit, pre-empting (some of) our gigglier responses and mitigating against (some of) the material’s flimsiness. We still have movie stars, even if the pictures thrown up around them are getting smaller, staler and sillier.
Crowe’s Amorth is pulled away from Dan Brown-ish Vatican politicking to attend a gloomy San Sebastián abbey being renovated by single parent Julia (Alex Essoe). Here, things are going bump in the night, chiefly Julia’s son Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney), possessed by a pesky demon who scratches “GOD IS NOT HERE” on his host’s chest, like an “I’m with stoopid”-style T-shirt slogan. Only Father Gabriele is a worthy enough opponent for this entity: propelling an earnest local cleric (Daniel Zovatto) across an adjoining corridor, Henry’s demon bellows: “Wrong fucking priest!” – with the voice of Finchy from The Office, for extra chuckles. The subsequent growl-off is like The Exorcist redone as a TikTok video.
