If you’ve been waiting to see Russell Crowe and the Colosseum in the same shot ever since he fought there in Gladiator, we have good news: he’s back in the vicinity of his old stomping ground in The Pope’s Exorcist. In nearly every way, though, this is something totally different – a based-on-truth (well, -ish) horror yarn in which Crowe plays Father Gabriele Amorth, who long held the position of (you guessed it!) the Pope’s personal exorcist. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because he was the subject of William Friedkin’s documentary The Devil And Father Amorth back in 2017. Although, as you’ll see in the trailer below, this one might be erring on The Conjuring side of factual accuracy.
The Pope’s Exorcist marks the return of director Julius Avery, previously behind D-Day zombie horror Overlord, and once again here he’s balancing historical settings with supernatural horror – as Father Amorth faces down a young boy’s possession. But for all the real-world context, this looks like a big splashy bump-in-the-night-romp with a tongue in cheek edge (that line “You have a problem with me, you talk to my boss: The Pope”, has to be self-aware… right?) and all kinds of spooky shenanigans that suggests it won’t be skewing to Skinamarink-ian lo-fi realism. Check out the poster here:
It’ll be the battle of the Exorcists on the big screen this year – The Pope’s Exorcist is getting there first, coming to cinemas on 14 April, before David Gordon Green’s reboot-quel of The Exorcist (another Blumhouse collaboration, after his Halloween sequel trilogy) comes our way around Halloween. Get your Holy Water ready, people!