The Vatican Exorcisms (2013)

Fresh and Exciting

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

While the found footage genre has definitely deserved some of the hate it has gotten over the years, it angers me that films about exorcisms and the conspiracies of The Vatican, which are more uniformly awful than the former, don't seem to get the widespread hate that found footage films do. Whenever a new found footage film hits theaters, it's dismissed almost instantly of a retread of familiar ground, yet films concerning the Catholic church don't get the same sort of dismissal (perhaps because they are now appearing in less and less theaters and more on the direct-to-DVD market?) Whatever the case, Joe Marino's The Vatican Exorcisms adds to the scrapheap of lackluster exorcism films, a genre that some thirty years ago seemed fresh and limitless, but now, is as predictable and as frightening as a child jumping out of bushes shouting "boo" in the middle of the afternoon. The film's DVD release is positioned ever-so closely to the limited theatrical release of another film titled The Vatican Tapes (unseen by me, as of now), undoubtedly to cause a sense of consumer confusion (or perhaps market saturation) of a genre of films that peaked with its first major hit in 1973 and has yet to impress on a level even remotely close to its grandfather.This is one of those mockumentaries (fake documentaries) that tries to get you to believe what you're seeing is real footage, but because the approach (the constant iteration of showing the truth and assertion that the director and crew are making a movie) and the structure are so generic, any elements of originality are sacrificed for routine storytelling. We follow director Joe Marino as he travels to Italy with the goal of exposing the many crimes of The Vatican, including the disappearance of young women, Satanic rituals, orgies, and exorcisms, all of which the church has worked to cover up. By his side is exorcism-expert Padre Luigi, who helps Marino piece together the plethora of paranormal activity that occurs and how The Vatican has managed to be so secretive when it comes to profiling these incidents.The film does find itself a tad unsettling during some of the Satanic rituals because of the way Marino and his crew choose to capture them. The scenes themselves don't always come equipped with a payoff, and sometimes, for extended periods of time, we are voyeurs into the noneventful rituals, passively waiting for something to occur while there is limited dialog and an eerie presence of silence. This effect is quite stimulating, actually; a relieving break from the horror films that constantly feel the need to work towards something rather than having a more liberal structure to showcase their events.The effect, while admittedly unsettling for the first few scenes, becomes a grating one very quickly, even for a film that barely qualifies as a feature (without credits, the film is roughly seventy-four minutes). Even with this concise runtime, The Vatican Exorcisms plods along from one ridiculous, foreseeable scene to the next; how many films do we need to see that involve innocent people contorting themselves on the floor of a church in front of numerous bystanders, and how many of them do we need to see that are so theatrical they cannot even bear the element of being believable.Exorcism films are films, from what I've seen, with no staying power whatsoever. Slasher films give you an uneasiness at night, films about wild animals make you weary of the woods, and films that go beyond the realm of reality into your subconscious make lying down to to go to a sleep a bit more difficult. Exorcism films are so conventionally made and arbitrarily concocted that there's little to make you fear other than the fact that you're losing time by watching yet another one, and Joe Marino's The Vatican Exorcisms is a result of undisciplined and unambitious mockumentary fluff.Directed by: Joe Marino.

the Vatican exorcisms is the title for release in the UK, the original title is "the truth about devil". I advise you not to look at this as a movie, look no plot, this is a good documentary with real exorcisms. if you're looking for a horror movie with lots of special effects, is another film, this is a good mix between a real and fake, to me personally makes me scared, maybe, i live in Naples city and local newspapers here have talked about strange events linked to this documentary. The priest "don Luigi" is real, he works in a church in Naples and is a famous exorcist. I think that the director we've played on this in post production, release for marketing, but perhaps it was better to sell and install this for what it is; a documentary !!

Let me warn all those, that wish to see this "documentary" unspoiled, before I start into the review itself. Read no further as there will be spoilers and I would like you all to see it for what it is and not influenced by my opinions. What I will say though, for those who would like to know my opinion before they watch it is this: I believe this is truly one of the worst pieces of moving picture out there. It's utter stupidity and blatant disregard for the intelligence of the viewers is staggering.So let's start. This is supposed to be a documentary about an American director trying to uncover the truth about exorcism and evil in the Vatican. Many a movie have been made about this, yet it is still a topic shrouded in mystery. Nobody knows much, everybody is just guessing. OK, I can see why a documentary style movie would be appealing in the light of the modern trend of making "found footage" horror movies. The problem is, that even a movie, that acts like found footage / "actual reality" needs to be thought through and prepared well, so that it can actually look like real. The details often make the reality believable. When watching this movie I got my first laughs and "What the hell?'s" in the first 5 minutes. The acting/non-acting is sterile, the conversations are just artificial, there is no energy flow, no life in them, they feel like a bad try at the first rehearsal in a voluntary theater. They look like bad actors, trying to act like they are not acting. Unfortunately this is seen through the whole movie.The moment I got really angry was the part where they watch the "black mass". Somehow they got hold of a victim of some sort of a crime. They get info about some sort of Vatican sect doing Black masses on Friday nights. They watch from distance, big bonfire burning bright with flames high, ritualistic atmosphere is present. Suddenly they try to move to get closer, the camera is pointed away from the action and in a few seconds focuses back on the people. Unfortunately enough, although the re-positioning took only a few seconds they appeared at least twice as close as before, with the angle changed significantly. This kind of movement in secret so as to remain unseen and unheard, would take a filming crew a few minutes, not mere seconds, yet the director obviously didn't worry about it. What he didn't worry about either was the fact, that after just a few seconds of moving, the fire suddenly burned a lot less, like a half an hour of shooting passed in between. At one point someone suggests to call the police. You cannot hear anybody dialing, nor calling. Then suddenly the participants notice the filming crew and start chasing them. Here it becomes really stupid. The crew runs away with cameras rolling. During the whole chaos and camera shaking wildly from all the running, for a few seconds, the one holding it, conveniently points it backwards steadily enough for you to notice the chasers :). They run for 35 seconds, before they get to a major road with buildings and lights everywhere, with the police just arriving. Now to get all that in relation to time. Exactly 50 seconds after it was suggested to call the police, they were discovered and started running. They ran about 35 seconds (which could mean about 250 meters, maybe 300?). The police was already arriving at the place they ran to. It took about 1 minute and 25 seconds for the police to arrive. I have yet to see a police force to have this kind of response time. Secondly, if someone is trying to tell me, that a super secret Vatican sect, that worships the devil or whatever, does these black masses out in the open about 200 - 300 meters away from a major road with lights and everything and nobody has yet even confirmed their existence, then they must think very low of my intelligence. And even when no one calls the police, they arrive 85 seconds after it being suggested to call them? It would take that long to get transferred to the right operator in most countries...Unfortunately this is only one short scene from the movie, quite close to beginning even and it already made me furious. This trend keeps going throughout the whole movie. The last big scene of the movie is something I can only call "the bad contortionist gig". As it goes with exorcisms, every one of them needs a nice case of the devil contorting the body in uncomfortable ways. I have to say that short of putting my leg over my head, I could probably do everything shown. They even used old kid's tricks like the one where you put your palm flat on the ground, arm straight up and you rotate the palm 360 degrees. Search youtube for "360 Degree Arm Twist Technique" and you'll get the idea how low they had to sink, to add some "effects" in the movie (of course adding the nasty "joint snapping sound" to add some nastiness to it).In the end: I recommend this move as a "How you should NOT make movies or documentaries" learning material. For me, this was truly one of the worst movies ever witnessed and I give it 1/10 points. VERY AWFUL! Don't watch it, if you hate being insulted from the screen...

You have to be pretty lax and generous when it comes to reviewing a horror film, but I had to chime in on this one. The timing of the scares were off. It had its moments where it could have been truly horrifying but then it went back to the drag of the exorcism rites. Horrible makeup on the possessed people.The final scene involving a man who contorted his body clearly went way over the top. I wasn't sure if I was watching an advanced yoga course or a possession. The only frightening part of the movie was when it came to the house scene, and even then that was another let down. Wasted potential but hey at least the Italian countryside was beautiful.