31 Days of Halloween 2013: The Exorcist in the 21st Century

Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.

A few years ago there was something in theaters called THE RITE, a blah occult chiller, “inspired by actual events” (yes, yet another based-on-a-true-story horror picture; is there anyone besides children and Obama supporters who are still taken in by that come-on?), with Sir Anthony Hopkins largely wasted in a potboiler about modern exorcists in Italy. Frogs played an important role in it, as I recall, frogs and CGI.

THE RITE did accomplish one thing – it cultivated enough morbid curiosity in me to actually read Matt Baglia’s nonfiction book of the same title, the “true story” that Hollywood thought worthy enough to render as PG-13 demon kitsch. The book was okay, I guess, a sympathetic account of an American Catholic priest, Fr. Gary, interning with actual Vatican-approved Italian exorcists on the techniques of casting out evil spirits. It acknowledged the indefinably thin line between “real” possession and psychiatric disorders, the whole evolution and proper application of the “Roman Ritual” (AKA exorcism), the various backstories offered on Satan/Lucifer and, for me most of all, anyway, the notion that Italy is a really weird place. I don’t think I’ll go there anytime soon. That even goes for Little Italy.