Movie Review – THE VATICAN TAPES

You know the one about the young girl who gets possessed, nobody believes it, and someone of power has to perform an exorcism in the 3rd act? Sure you do. We get this movie or some variation therein, a few times a year. Sometimes it’s a demon, sometimes it’s a ghost, but it always ends up being roughly the same film outline. Popping bones and inhuman movement or contortion is a given, speaking in lounges, and there’s a fake out where you think the entity has left…BUT NOT YET! Before going any further I should say that yes, The Vatican Tapes is precisely one of these movies. The last time I caught one before this was last year’s Deliver Us from Evil, which came from Scott Derrickson. I didn’t care for that, but coincidentally Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose was the last theatrical one I really enjoyed. Too often these are by the numbers and void of any surprise, but Emily Rose approached things from an entirely different angle by making the film be a courtroom case. May not be for everyone, but the characters meant something. So not expecting much from The Vatican Tapes, I sat down to watch another version of the same tried and true possession film…but with noticeable differences here and there. Somewhere along the way it grabbed me, and by the end it had only gripped me tighter. I have no idea how.

A young woman is seen in a taped interview with a therapist with a strange entity seemingly inside her. This is no “ordinary” demon; the Vatican believes it to be the end of times – the anti-Christ. We see this girl, Angela (Olivia Taylor Dudley), and her family and discover how she has arrived at the place she’s at during the interview video. Strange occurrences and behavior lead to testing and hospitalization. After a coma and an attempt to drown a baby (!) that Angela isn’t aware of doing, she’s institutionalized. It’s at this point we arrive where the Vatican becomes involved, but their motives are shrouded. An exorcism is the last option. Is there hope for Angela?

Gladly this isn’t a “found footage” movie as the title probably has most people guessing. There are taped interview segments, TV footage, CCTV bits to link scenes, and character camera usage from time to time, but there’s no first person element to be found. I don’t dislike the “found footage” genre subset, but we’ve already had the possession movie with that angle at least 6 times in recent memory, and only one of them was worth watching. Director Mark Neveldine is one-half of the directing team behind the Crank films, both of which displayed so many different mediums of film, exposure levels, saturation, speed, and a mad energy unlike anything else. Crank’s fun, but Crank 2 is one of the most insane, amazing pieces of pulp I’ve ever seen. Vatican Tapes doesn’t lend itself to quite as wide a range of style but Neveldine brings along a lot of tricks to help the movie stand out from the rest, especially the high use of hand held and the whacked placement and angles he excels in. A scene where a therapy group is enticed to go insane is full of strange angles and camera movement that accentuates the madness at hand. There are a few moments of shock and awe that really grabbed my attention outside of this, one of which involving eggs in a fashion I’ve not seen before.

Performances are a mixed bag as the characters aren’t really drawn well, more like just caricatures of people. Ashley’s father and boyfriend (Dougray Scott and John Patrick Amedori, respectively) are non-existent characters simply there to show concern and being baffled by what’s happening. Michael Pena’s Father Lorenzo is the outsider priest getting his first taste of possession and the deeper sect of the Vatican, and he performs exactly as needed with what very little he’s given, likewise with Djimon Hounsou’s minor role as a high up within the Vatican. Let’s face it; the only characters that really matter in these things are the possessed and the priest. Peter Andersson’s Cardnial Brunn is decent as far as the exerciser goes, but the highlight is Dudley. Like Gretchen Lodge in Lovely Molly and Ashley Bell in The Last Exorcism, Dudley is a breakout because the role demands it and she steps up. She walks the line playing the innocent fawn and the mad monster beautifully. She’s one to watch.

The Vatican Tapes’ last 10 minutes either wowed me or charmed me…I’ve seen the flick twice and I’m still not sure which. This isn’t a very strong script without the finale, so it’s difficult to decide if the ending salvages the rest. We’ve seen all of this before otherwise, and that’s made interesting by a strong lead and dazzling direction. Yes, there’s a twist to some degree, but I don’t think knowing it alone would even do it justice if you manage to fall into this flick like I did. There’s also no way that the movie would have won me over WITHOUT the ending. There’s a blend of style and substance here, certainly more the former than the later, but the only way to make this flick really stand out from the rest is to raise the stakes. The Vatican Tapes succeeds at this. While it’s not a genre defining moment, this is a decent film with a fantastic lead performance, and it’s worth a look.