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It was a terrible way to spend a hot, summer afternoon, in a movie theater watching a Hollywood horror film about exorcism, but, hey, someone has to do it. And since I am The Real Exorcist, why not me? I’ve consulted on a lot of movies like this, but I never got a call from the producers of this one. It’s just as well. No way could I have encouraged anyone to see this grotesque and twisted portrayal of expelling demons. For starters, the hunk hero is a cop (remotely based on a real life story) who is a lapsed, profanity-spouting Catholic who has abandoned his faith. He doesn’t believe in the supernatural but comes around at the end of the film after witnessing the paranormal on steriods. The faux priest who does the exorcism is a whisky drinking, cigarette smoking, lustful, young (of course good-looking) minister who just narrowly missed getting defrocked for getting a secret girlfriend pregnant. The priest tells the cop that he has the “gift of spiritual discernment,” a mockery in itself since all the policemen experiences are psychic impressions in the midst of a morally bankrupt life.
The priest does have down the ritual of exorism, sort of, except for losing his cool at one point and throwing the F-bomb into the ancient, sacred text. Yes a cross is used, even the blood of Christ is mentioned, but it’s in the midst of so much gore its holy significance is marginalized by putrefying corpses. I guess this is Tinseltown’s way of making the Catholic faith look cool. In the end, the man of God is almost outdone by the blood drooling, animal snarling, demented demon-carrier. Good triumphs over evil eventually; but the film viewer has to wade through so many uses of the Lord’s name in vain and the F-word employed ubiquitously as a default adjective so many times that the end of the movie seems to warrant a moral shower-cleansing afterwards, rather than a Eucharist celebration. It is an exorcism movie but the rite is almost incidental to the fright factor of oozing guts and maggot infested bodies. It’s The Exorcist on meth with none of the green-pea vomit.
Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did� (Luke 4:18). You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.