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Bad things have been known to happen on the set of horror films, reported dutifully. Who would have thought that Russell Crowe would be one of the worst? Just over a year after he played The Pope’s Exorcist, the Australian actor makes a reappearance in a cassock and collar, putting himself — and us — through even more torture.
The difference this time is that instead of the Vatican’s hot-shot demon slayer in chief, he is a down-and-out actor called Anthony Miller, whose career has lately been on a downward spiral of booze, drugs, rehab, triggered by the slow death of his wife to cancer. Towards the end of her life, as she lay there suffering in her own bodily fluids, he abandoned her and their daughter as he went on a ”philandering” spree. Not only does Anthony or Tony carry the guilt of this, it has also been revealed lately that as a choir boy, he was a victim of an abusive priest.
Given the history, hiring him to play in a film a tortured priest who is called upon to exorcise a particularly nasty ghost can be both an inspired idea — or not. In this case, it is mostly not, as horrible things keep happening to actors who take on the role.
This is even before Tony himself gets associated with the film, tentatively titled ‘The Georgetown Project’, in a throwback to the famous The Exorcist. The director, Miller, also has his own link to that 1970s film, with his father having played the priest in it. Once Tony comes on board, there is no respite.
However, apart from the fact that there is a demon who appears in the form of Tony once in a while, nothing else is clear. For that matter, the film doesn’t even mention demon or devil in so many words. It actually spends as much time on Tony as on his daughter Lee (Simpkins) who, after expulsion from her Catholic school for a protest regarding a gay relationship, has returned to what is a home from hell.
As things go south and then more south, Lee doesn’t consider medical help, though Tony is on medication, and instead drags in Tony’s co-star Blake, played by Bailey (the two young girls hook up almost instantly), and a priest/trained psychologist from Columbia, Father Connor (Pierce), who is a consultant on the set. They unthinkingly oblige.
Since it is a film that ultimately demands that one has at least some faith in the Bible and Archangels et al, it takes care to stay on the right side of the Church — particularly when it comes to the chaste romp between Lee and Blake.
Like its demon with no clear form or intent, The Exorcism lurches around, up and down corridors, round corners, in shadows and locked rooms, finally exiting after exhausting the last of our patience. What is Worthington doing in all of this? Being ghosted.
The Exorcism movie director: Joshua John Miller
The Exorcism movie cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg
The Exorcism movie rating: 1 star
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