The Vatican Exorcisms (DVD)

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The Vatican ExorcismsDirected by Joe Marino

Starring Joe Marino, Pierro Maggio, Twisty Demon


Many of my contemporaries are weary of the found footage trend, as it seems that every other week a new shakey-cam abortion is plopped on our doorstep. For many reviewers, movies that at one point would have been decently well received are now savaged with the merciless rage of a spirit of an ancient tribe avenging his wrongfully slaughtered people. I never got on the torch and pitchfork bandwagon, and as a result I have become the de facto shitty found footage guy. The genre gets a lot of leeway with me, and as long as the premise is interesting and actors half awake, the movie can get away with dirt production values and overdone cliches.

I am impressed that a single Italian man with naught but a video camera and a limitless supply of self-love managed to give me a long look into the dark abyss of a genre near bled dry. This film is so monumentally shit, that it makes the previous two and next two found footage films I watch worse by osmosis. If a barrel ever had a bottom, it looks like Joe Marino’s smug self satisfied grin.

Looking at the title and with the knowledge that this is a found footage film, you know what this movie is. Joe Marino plays Joe Marino, an unlikable arrogant documentary filmmaker who is investigating claims of possession and devil worship because the plot needs him to. The camera is in his face 90% of the movie, and he actually sells the part of someone who isn’t acting in a movie very well, as at no point did I feel like he was acting.

I’d really like to get my hands on a copy of the original script, as I imagine there is heavy scene direction to “smolder.” Every line and scene is delivered in the way someone writes self-insert fanfiction, with the absolute blind certainty that you are the coolest and sexiest guy in the world. At one point, Joe is interviewing the token exorcist, and the exorcist says, “The Devil is real, and I do battle with him every day.” After a deep breath, a wry smirk spreads across Joe’s salt and pepper stubble face. He cocks his head back a bit, and says, “Well, then introduce me to him.” Hold shot to smolder. End scene.

I imagine at the end of every shot, he held out his hands, palms up, and two auxiliary bros would come out from the background and jumping high five him in unison. I know I am harping a bit too much on Mr. Marino, but it takes some kind of crazed delusions of grandeur to not only direct a movie this bad, but also star in it. He had to have read the script, decided that the best candidate to deliver the overwrought and nonsense dialogue was none other than himself, acted through the whole thing, edited it, decided that his bizarre overemphasized delivery was the best take, and released it for the world to see.

I know a lot of really bad movies come out, but they usually have a sense of corniness where everyone knew they were all taking part in making something crap. The best of these movies are schlock that takes the piss out of itself to an extent that it becomes ironically comedic. A lot of people enjoy watching incredibly bad yet entertaining movies, as evidenced by the followings behind movies like The Room and Trolls 2. What makes these movies fun is not only the terrible acting, but the nonsense plot where unpredictably absurd twists occur at every turn.

The Vatican Exorcisms is not one of these movies. It starts off with some hints of a plot about satanic corruption within the Vatican. They go out and disrupt a black mass, calling the cops to arrest several cultists. And then they go dancing. There’s a whole segment where Joe just holds the camera in front of his face and dances in circles at a party. They whole satanic corruption element never comes back, so I can only assume that they beat the devil and are now celebrating.

Next up, we meet Father Luigi Monsi, who will serve as our tour guide to exorcism for the remainder of the trip. From here, the movie flips between Joe getting spooked in his hotel room, Joe being upset on the bus, and Joe having an increasingly bad time at Exorcisms. The movie could easily be re-titled “The Four People You Obligatorily Must Exorcise,” and serve as a self-help book for mindless filmmakers. First up is teenage girl possessed by demons making her say sex stuff, followed by possessed old lady, followed by little girl who is oddly calm for being possessed, and finally my personal favorite, twisty demon.

In every exorcism, the priest says some holy words and throws down some holy water, and the demon goes “hisssssss” and the person shakes. There are a couple of creative variations, such as when the little girl demon is actually in two places at the same time, but the movie never delivers a single scare. I get that they might have been going for a realistic vibe, but you kind of threw that out the window when you put a soundtrack into your found footage movie. If you are going to have music accompanying your shots, you might as well CG in some ghosts and distort some screams, because we are clearly watching a movie.

Most annoyingly, it adds up to nothing. It doesn’t end with some shocking or interesting twist, which can slightly redeem a shit film as evidenced by 2012’s Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes. It all adds up to over a solid 10 minutes of twisty demon just twisting about and running around a room while a priest yells at him. That’s right, 10 solid minutes of it, no exaggeration. After this, Joe screams and runs away, at what I first assumed was from the revelation that he actually just stared in this terrible mess. But no, it turns out he was demoned as well, and we get a message from his wife several months later.

At the very beginning of the film, we see a rundown house with a blue tarp over the side. When we meet little girl demon, she hands him a drawing of it, leading to a flashback of the ever so important house. Joe’s wife tells us that after he returned, he became obsessed with the house, and would spend more and more time there. Neighbors reported hearing screams, not all of which were Joe’s. As an unnamed cameraman investigates the scene, everything is rundown, but otherwise normal. For the final shot of the movie, into frame comes a faint etching on the wall that says “Exist.” Credits roll.

So The Vatican Exorcisms was not only bad, but it wasted my time as well. Cool Joe, thanks for that one. It feels like some writer had seven distinctly bland ideas, and just stitched them together into a movie. He couldn’t decide if he wanted it to be a movie about a demon house, Satan worshiping cultists, a guy being haunted in his hotel room, or one of four terrible exorcisms, so he just shrugged and made it about all of them. Nothing is ever built up sufficiently to feel satisfying, so we are just left with a confusing array of conclusions that mean nothing.

The Vatican Exorcisms is stylistically, technically, directorally, narratively, and performance wise bad. It is hard to fathom how such a clusterfuck came to be. Usually, there’s at least one redeeming quality to even a bad movie, even if the quality is a level of quirky bad that crosses over into being endearing and good. There is nothing endearing or lovable about this movie. There is not a single thing I can point to and say that I liked. I was perpetually bored. I usually try very hard to come up with at least one thing I like about a movie this bad, but I can’t. Stay away from this movie.

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