While the original 2009 Black List-selected screenplay (written by Christopher Borrelli and Michael C. Silly, screechy and eminently watchable, this thrifty horror exorcise (er, exercise) could yield decent theatrical profit for Pantelion Films, and might turn even more heads in VOD play. And director Mark Neveldine, who is no master of dread but a dab hand at dispensing regular shocks, brings an undeniable lunatic conviction to this cheaply derivative religio-horror freakout, while running up the sort of abnormally high body count you’d expect from a “Die Hard” sequel rather than an occult thriller. Some of the special effects are cool, but they don’t compensate for the surrounding lack of drive.īy the conclusion of THE VATICAN TAPES, it seems as though the filmmakers are angling for a sequel, but it will be hard to make audiences care what happens next without making them first care about (or at least take seriously) what happens in this one.It’s no ordinary case of demonic possession that rouses the attention of the Catholic Church in “The Vatican Tapes” - more like the sort of full-on egg-vomiting, eyeball-gouging spiritual meltdown that suggests the Antichrist herself now walks among us. The more the screenplay insists that there are dire consequences here, the less persuasive it gets.
(The cast does their best with the material.) This notable structural flaw is superseded by the exposition itself, which is jaw-dropping in so many different ways that, for a moment, it seems that perhaps THE VATICAN TAPES is meant to be a genre parody.Īny movie would have trouble recovering from this, but THE VATICAN TAPES has nothing to fall back on – not plot momentum, not characterization, not even good scares. The reason for why Angela has been specifically targeted for what she’s going through is first of all delivered in one of those giant hairballs of exposition that gets virtually no dramatic buildup until one of the actors delivers it with commendable professionalism. Ah, but the devil is not only in the victim, it’s in the details.
So far, apart from being derivative, this sounds neither better nor worse than most other exorcism movies. Father Lozano in turn becomes convinced that the supernatural is involved and reaches out to Cardinal Bruun (Peter Andersson). Roger and Pete both become concerned Roger finally reaches out to a friendly priest, Father Lozano (Michael Pena). Then some very strange incidents occur and Angela begins acting very strangely.
THE VATICAN TAPES is well-made enough to stay out of the latter category, but as an exorcism horror film – or any sort of film, for that matter – it still qualifies as a mess.Īfter an onscreen note informs us that the Vatican is concerned about incidents of demonic possession and see tapes of exorcisms that are purportedly part of a secret library of such things, we are then introduced to Angela Holmes (Olivia Dudley), a pretty, young American woman whose primary goal at the moment seems to be preventing her religious and military officer father Roger (Dougray Scott) from becoming overly stern with her boyfriend Pete (John Patrick Amedori). At the low end is some truly astonishing schlock.
At the high end, there’s the William Peter Blatty/William Friedkin 1973 classic THE EXORCIST and more financially modest but tremendously effective efforts like THE LAST EXORCISM. A scene from THE VATICAN TAPES | © 2015 LionsgateĮxorcism films run the gamut.