The Vatican Tapes (2015) Review!!

Synopsis – A priest and two Vatican exorcists must do battle with an ancient satanic force to save the soul of a young woman.

My Take – Films based on possession come out nearly every year, while most never live upto the standard of the ones which started the genre, they all usually end up being watchable. Exorcist movies have lost its freshness over the years due to the fact that almost every single one of them is exactly the same and trying to be “realistic”, but it’s just a nonsensical excuse from these filmmakers who lack creativity & try to be scary. But not all of them, of course, suffer with that case. Possession films in the past such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005) have proved to be sick, and manage to freak out the audience with the display of it’s demonic possession. In recent times, PG-13 possession films have proved to be quite sick, and perhaps good as well. However this possession film ends up in the low watchable meter due to its high quality of cliches. The scares of this movie, are surprisingly low. You’ve pretty much seen this tactic in many films before. Does this perhaps ring a bell? A bird flying at the window? Through it? Yea. We’ve seen this before, at least twice. There’s also, once again, without spoiling anything some other scares that have been seen before, on top of that, some of them are even horribly placed, resulting in a failed attempt at jump scaring the audience.

There are also some scares floating around that will make you jump, but then when you realize what it was that made you jump, you’d ask yourself “How did that scare me?’ It may be floating around as a new exorcism story but it really isn’t. It’s more of the Antichrist coming to earth story, which Gabrielle Burn kinda set the standard for in the 90’s film ‘End of Days‘ and this film barely comes close to grazing his wickedness. But this may very well be the story’s entire twist? It does come off as a realization in the end but its so underwhelming to the point where it does not feel like a spoiler mentioning it to you. The craft is interesting for a rather generic exorcist story-line. The camera-work may put people off for being just another found footage mess, but it’s actually not quite a mess. The cinematography and editing are decently put together and it instead brings momentum within the chaos happening on screen. It’s more action movie aesthetic than horror, but it’s the tone that breathes the anxiety. The film begins with a line from the scriptures about the coming of the second Christ and how it will basically be a sheep in wolves clothing which may be setting up the story about to follow but in reality it pointed out how the pope, or other men of the cloth, could very well be this Antichrist they are preaching about. Starting off with the story of this film, of which seems to be quite simple. Our main character becomes possessed, and it progressively gets worse, and worse overtime. The story follows Angela Holmes (Olivia Taylor Dudley), who on her 25th birthday party accidentally cuts herself and thereafter for some inexplicable reason, she breaks into erratic behavior which leads to a major car accident, leading to her being in comatose for 40 days. After she miraculously recovers, unwittingly with telekinetic powers, she begins to eliminate people around her in the most gruesome manner. Upon realizing that they can’t help her any further, the hospital discharges Angela. It is then that the local priest, Father Lozano (Michael Pena), assures her live-in boyfriend, Pete (John Patrick Amedori) and her religious father, Roger (Dougray Scott) that he would help them. He informs Vicar Imani (Djimon Hounsou) as a result Cardinal Bruun (Peter Andersson) is dispatched to perform the exorcism. How he goes about it forms the crux of the story. The movie opens with a series of exorcism footage indicating that evil truly exists and then we cut to two Vatican exorcists who are studying a young woman, who happens to be possessed, in a video tape that were sent from a priest in Los Angeles. The story went back few months earlier and telling the complete story of how this victim, Angela, is slowly consumed by this demonic spirit.

At this point, the movie is quite standard. We see this woman acting strange whenever she is visited by a mysterious raven, she often gets an excess of thirst and does horrible things to people, like blinding themselves to death or make them kill each other. It all seems ridiculous than scary, but with its aspect, it kind of works. It gives this demon a vast freedom to its menacing abilities, no matter how silly these actions get. The script by writers Christopher Borrelli and Michael C. Martin is shoddy and confusing. The plot lacks expositions and thus it is perplexing for the audience to decipher the tale. With minimal horror tropes, the graph of the narration is flat in the first two acts. The account picks up momentum in the last 30 minutes of the 90 minute narrative, which is rather late. The most surprising thing about it may be how serious the film tries to be, given that the director is Mark Neveldine—one half of the duo Neveldine/Taylor, who made films such as Crank, Gamer, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (films I dint hate). Those films were adolescent and exuberant, made buoyant by irreverent humor and athletic camerawork. The demonic possession sub genre could have really benefited from those qualities, as the films tend to be dour and visually uninspired, yet Neveldine applies his gifts stingily. Occasionally the film hints at being a wilder film than it actually is, but ends up never rising over its tedious screenplay. The acting is decent, as well, though Michael Pena is mostly a studying witness to get his character fully fleshed out, but he does a solid job as the supposed protagonist, anyway. Dougray Scott makes for an effective concern father of Angela. Djimon Hounsou and Peter Andersson spices up the screen whenever they’re around in their very small roles. But who really impresses among this cast is Olivia Taylor Dudley, who gives creepy glares and intense paranoia as the ticking bomb of all possessed victims. On the whole, ‘The Vatican Tapes‘ is a silly & tired attempt on joining the success wagon of possession & found footage films. The film had potential to be something good, but due its lack in critical horror elements, like scares, and tension, the film never gets interesting.