Good bones.
That’s what a real estate agent might say about Spain’s St. Sebastian Abbey. Oh, yes, it needs a little work, she might say with a forced smile, as her heels click briskly over the tile. The plumbing’s not quite up to code. The electricity is a little iffy, especially during supernatural thunderstorms. The wallpaper has some … scratches on it. But the abbey’s been standing for centuries, so you know the foundation’s solid. It’s got good bones.
Julia certainly hopes so.
When Julia’s husband tragically died about a year ago, in 1986, he left behind his wife, their two kids and this crumbling old abbey—part of his family’s holdings for generations. The edifice certainly looks impressive. But Julia has no desire to live in the shambling old relic. Still, she has to fix the place up a bit if she hopes to sell it. So she, teen daughter Amy and freakishly quiet son Henry have moved from the States to Spain while the work’s being done. Can’t have the laborers marring the mahogany, after all.
Amy is underwhelmed by the abbey. Why, it’s almost as old and as useless as her mother (she surely whispers to herself). Henry? Well, it’s hard to know what he thinks. He’s not spoken since his father was killed.
But then—perhaps before the family has even completely unpacked—Henry says something:
“You’re all going to die.”
Well. That might not be the most promising beginning to psychological recovery.
Soon, it becomes quite clear that there’s something seriously wrong with the little boy. He’s scratching up his face and rolling back his eyes and shouting in a voice that sounds like it’s been rubbed by sandpaper for a few millennia.
Then one must consider his curious request: “Bring me the priest!” he shouts.
So a priest comes. Not just any priest, but Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s chief exorcist. If anyone can deal with Henry’s, um, infection, Father Gabriele can.
But inside Henry’s frail body, the demon smiles. That’s exactly the man it wants.
This abbey, it seems, hides a secret—underneath its crumbling walls and faulty plumbing. Bones lie in its corners and crevices.
Good bones? We’ll see.
[Note: Spoilers are contained in the following sections.]
Gabriele (based, at least on some level, on the Vatican’s real Father Gabriele Amorth) rubs some of his fellow priests the wrong way, but he’s certainly a conscientious exorcist. The priest has saved countless people—not just from possessive demons, but from their own frail selves. (Not everyone who claims to be possessed, of course, actually is.) And he understands that love is the greatest weapon in his arsenal.
He says as much to Julia, who is herself a deeply loving (and deeply concerned) mother. Gabriele reassures her that in the fight to come, what she brings to the table is incredibly important. “A mother’s love is the closest thing we know to God’ love,” he says.
The greatest manifestation of that love, of course, is sacrifice. And indeed, we see an act of supreme sacrifice here.
From open to close, The Pope’s Exorcist is wrapped up in religion, the supernatural and faith itself.
Gabriele is considered a relic by the young Cardinal Sullivan, who believes demon possession to be a myth. While Sullivan would like to eliminate Gabriele’s position entirely, the Pope gives Gabriele his protection. “[Supernatural evil] is only an idea for [the younger generation of priests],” the Pope laments. “For us it is very real.”
We see how real it can be in Gabriele’s first conversation with Henry—one which comes with some interesting spiritual nuances. When the demon says that he’ll use Gabriele’s own sins against him, Gabriele asks the demon to tell him what those sins might be. The demon is speechless: Gabriele points out that Jesus has washed his sins clean, leaving no trace of them. (The demon later does use Gabriele’s memories against him—because while God has forgiven Gabriele of his sins, Gabriele has not forgiven himself.)
Confession, we see, is an incredibly important piece of Gabriele’s fight with the demon. He and his young priestly aid, Father Esquibel, each confess to the other. And it’s quite apparent that if only a partial confession is given, the demon can use the secrets left behind. Prayer is also key: Gabriele tells others to pray relentlessly as he performs the actual exorcism: The prayers, he says, are deeply painful to the demon. Because demons are selfish creatures, they’ll ultimately tell the priests what they need to know to stop the pain.
Still, talismans such as crosses and amulets impact the demon as well.
As the movie goes on, we discover (and an extra spoiler warning here) that its catacombs relate to the Spanish inquisition. Apparently, Spain’s prime inquisitor from the 15th century fought, and lost, to the demon in the abbey. He was possessed himself and singlehandedly brought the inquisition into being, which Gabriele describes as the darkest chapter in the Catholic Church’s history. This is interesting, because one of Gabriele’s darkest memories involves his inability (and unwillingness) to help a victim of Church-based sexual abuse. We hear that the demon wants to “destroy the Church from within,” and perhaps the movie’s demon wanted to use Gabriele as an unholy instrument to leverage the Church’s scandals for infernal purposes.
We hear references to a story found in the non-canonical Book of Enoch wherein 200 corrupted angels fell to earth and made nuisances of themselves. Gabriele and the Pope both seem to accept this story as canonical, and a map is even discovered marking where those fallen angels have supposedly made themselves at home (and set up bastions where God is not welcome).
Supernatural forces are clearly at play in the abbey, knocking on walls and scratching up wallpaper and, occasionally, flinging people around. People become possessed, engaging in plenty of disturbing activity under that demonic influence.
Plenty of Christian and demonic imagery can be found here. Crosses hang around priests’ necks, adorn walls and grace stained glass windows. And sometimes they invert themselves. A statue of Jesus hanging from the cross bleeds at one point. Pentagrams glow. An angelic being—one whom I think the movie means for us to associate with Mary—proves instead to be demonic. Someone wears a devil’s mask. Ancient and modern depictions of demons are seen. Gabriele greets an angelic statue, calling it “my friend.”
One other note: We learn that about 98% of the cases that come to Gabriele’s door don’t require an exorcist, but rather a doctor or psychologist. Not everyone we see who looks possessed actually is here. But in one case, Gabriele seems to pretend that the victim is—performing rites of exorcism to “free” the man of his more psychological demons. He later tells a panel of Vatican officials that sometimes people “just need a little conversation, a little understanding and, sometimes, a little theater.”
Father Esquibel has an unconfessed sin: an affair with a young woman. The woman apparently wanted him to leave the priesthood; he lied and said he would. But Esquibel tells Gabriele that his love for God outweighed his love for this woman, and it seems as though the relationship somehow ended. (When he confesses and is subsequently absolved of this sin, he’s considered fit for the fight again.)
The demon uses this sin against the priest, accusing him of being a “panty sniffer” and someone prone to seducing young daughters. The demon also manifests as the woman at times: In one scene, she sits in a bed, her breasts uncovered, and encourages the priest to join her. In another, she’s seen from the side, fully naked (albeit covered in a sheen of blood).
A possessed Henry grabs his mother’s breasts several times, complaining that he was never breastfed as a baby. Amy dresses in garb that reveals leg, midriff and cleavage. Julia tells her she needs to stop dressing provocatively, as it’ll draw the wrong sort of attention from the workers at the abbey. But it’s clear that Amy’s seeking exactly that sort of attention.
Henry’s body is deeply abused by the demon within him. He scratches deep gouges in his face when he’s first possessed, and more cuts and scars crop up as the movie goes on. The demon carves messages on Henry’s chest and stomach, too. His mouth distends unnaturally (both to disgorge things from his body and just to scream), and Henry’s clearly in a lot of pain most of the time.
Bodies are supernaturally thrown into walls. Demonic entities wrestle and choke people. Amy’s threatened by an invisible beast whose claws gouge the walls around her. Julia gets sucked into her own bed and nearly smothered. An explosion severely injures a couple of workers (we see one man, covered in burns, hauled into an ambulance). In flashback, we see the corpse of a man in a car, his head impaled by some sort of metal. (Gore and blood cover both the head and a protruding weapon.) A pig is shot in the head, spattering gore in a cottage. Someone has part of his ear bloodily bitten off.
A woman jumps to her death. Someone eats a live bird. Skulls and skeletons “decorate” portions of the abbey. We see a picture of the angel Michael fighting a dragon (an artistic manifestation of Satan). An entity seems to be practically pulled apart. In flashback, soldiers are shot and killed during World War II. We see small explosions of blood as the victims are hit with bullets, and later their bloody corpses laying in the streets.
About 15 f-words, three s-words and one use of “b–ch.” God’s name is misused seven times.
Father Gabriele carries a flask of whiskey. He takes a big swig of it when he first arrives at the abbey (blaming the dusty road for the need to drink), then shares a drink with Father Esquibel.
Someone projectile vomits what appears to be several gallons of blood. Amy also vomits slightly after being thrown against a wall. Henry regurgitates what appears to be a horrifically mauled but still-living bird.
Father Gabriele fought against fascists during World War II as part of the Italian resistance. When most of his comrades were gunned down, he pretended to be dead as a Nazi soldier walked through—an episode he still feels deep remorse over.
Amy treats her mother very disrespectfully at times.
“God is not here!” the demon shouts.
“God is always here!” the priest shouts back.
It’s in such reminders that The Pope’s Exorcist works, at least on some level. This movie reminds us of the reality of good and evil and the battle between them. It tells us that God is far superior to anything that the infernal forces can throw at us. And it insists that love transcends all demonic designs. And even when diabolical forces would use that love against us, it has a way of turning the tables.
Such is the foolishness of God.
Still, let’s not lose sight of how the movie’s own foolishness extends beyond that theme.
Father Gabriele Amorth was a real priest and a real exorcist—claiming to have performed thousands upon thousands of exorcisms until his death in 2016. He wrote several books about his experiences and was a somewhat controversial figure within Catholicism.
While The Pope’s Exorcist claims to be “based on” a couple of Father Amorth’s books, even star Russell Crowe says the movie engages in “quite a bit of artistic license.” The film blends standard possession tropes with standard haunted house tropes and owes as much to campy adventure/horror films such as Van Helsing as reality. Indeed, the movie seems to be hopeful that we’ll see sequels—featuring a couple of daring exorcists visiting pockets of demonic activity (helpfully marked on an ancient map). While the story has some nice messages here and there, the theology is pretty muddy.
And we can’t ignore its problematic excesses, either. Naked women covered in blood. Profanity-spitting kids. Blood and gore and more blood and more gore.
Sure, perhaps all those problems are to be expected at some level. This is an R-rated horror movie, after all, one whose main antagonist at first claims to be named “Blasphemy.” And this film, despite its weirdnesses and excesses, may actually plant seeds of spiritual growth in the lives of some. People who would never darken the door of a church might walk into a dark theater, seeking cheap thrills but finding something more.
But my guess is that most of those reading right now have already had those spiritual seeds planted in their lives. And if that’s the case, The Pope’s Exorcist likely holds little of value.
As the priest suggests, God can be found even in some pretty dark places. But that’s not necessarily reason to go there.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
