Recent Religious Horror
by Kristin Battestella
This trio of 2020s frights takes on evil in several forms. However, some results are better than others are – ranging from decent to frustrating and downright bad viewing experiences.
Pretty Good
The First Omen – Sonia Braga (Kiss of the Spiderwoman), Bill Nighy (Underworld), and Charles Dance (Game of Thrones) provide supporting gravitas in this 2024 prequel to The Omen co-written by debut director Arkasha Stevenson (Vessels). Tolling bells, scaffolding perils, and shattered glass begat shadowed confessions and whispers of unnatural conceptions. Black hoods, bound rituals, pregnancy, blood, and pleas to not be touched again make for a chilling start before the sunny arrival of our friendly American nun at the 1971 Roman orphanage. The old corridors look shabby with an amber, aged patina, and we wonder what goes on in this villa filled with women. These nuns smoke and giggle about the milkman, however union protests and youth counterculture that distrust church authority worry the Cardinal. Our novice recounts being a problem child herself, punished and subdued as a ward of the church for what was said to be an overactive imagination. She's reluctant to sneak out and hit the neon disco but soon gets into the dancing and sweaty kisses before regrets, kneeling, and prayers. Lookalike women, sisterhood suggestions, lesbian taboos, and repeated creepy hair fanning out upon the pillows foreshadow more while an excommunicated priest warns of evil things happening. Immolation, delirious weirdness, and monstrous nasty provide what we think we see in the dark fears amid eerie frescoes, hidden rooms, and disturbing offspring. Pregnancy is not a beautiful experience but gory with medical tools and horrible visions of demon hands and orifices. Backward chants and altars treat the Cesarean as ceremony – escalating to claws, growls, retching, convulsions, and baby cries. The elders claim this abomination is a miracle to save the church, however viewers will know what's what re mother and jackal before the ninety minute mark, and this didn't need to be two hours. Pointless arty shots and short cryptic scenes are disjointed while silly jump scares negate the more natural simmering horror mood. Swelling music calls attention to itself, heralding the spooky when the chorales should only be heard as diegetic and innate to the ritual vows. The revelations are overdone with repeated mark of the beast questions and Antichrist goals that don't make much sense when the sixth month, sixth hour, sixth day approaching should have driven the plot. Though very atmospheric and overall entertaining thanks to sudden, disturbing horrors; the last half hour drags on with fiery slow motion and but wait there's more too many endings. Instead of leading up to the picture of Gregory Peck and fin, this overstays its welcome by eking out room for The First Exorcism 2: Boogaloo.
Frustrating
The Harbinger – Native American seer Irene Bedard (Smoke Signals) educates writer/director/producer/star Will Klipstine (The Evolution of Andrew Andrews) on saving his damned daughter in this devilish 2022 tale. Hangings, mysterious death relics, and burning in hell declarations lead to our on the go family refusing the psychologist's concerns. Sunny flashbacks of happier times are oddly intercut with a cliché driving montage and an ominous gas station stop before an annoying neighbor gives the newcomers the bigoted scoop on the nearby cursed reservation. Our daughter kills a frog and pushes children out of the tree house, but the something evil afoot parental arguments are too on the nose – forcing the sinister amid disjointed scenes that don't happen organically. Viewers wonder what's on purpose, deflection, or padding as more caricature neighbors come and go. Little miss creepy is unwelcome at the reservation, but our seer both says there is no hope for such evil yet there is something they can do. Although not stereotypically portrayed, there also simply aren't enough Native American motifs. Mystical explanations devolve into magical gobbledygook about quests, blessed daggers, and sacred stones. Repetitive scenes with redundant exposition get preposterous as everyone tells but no one actually does anything. Our father finally admits the devil has his daughter's soul, and his having been a single parent would have been much more interesting. The best moments here are between dad and daughter with her asking if he remembers what she was really like and his carrying her to bed as always. One scene with our wife going to confession and the priest kicking her out goes nowhere thanks to demonic reflections, spooky whispers, dreams, and sepia speakeasy specters negating the too few and far between emotional family moments. Continued happy flashbacks don't create emotion, just delay the current inaction as our passive family makes no progress. The Mrs. hardly interacts with her daughter unless it's to be whooshed around the kitchen, complaining her husband needs to do more rather than being proactive herself. Likewise, our seer tells of colonial curses and sacrifices in the town crypt but she's not actively involved in any ritual to prevent the collecting of souls. Dead animals accumulate and demons attack the bed as more deaths and comeuppance are given after the fact. Police investigations again fall back on flashbacks – repeating the deals with the devil and harbinger exposition twice more with who's actually in on appeasing the devil. Their faith in God and any Catholicism are a non-factor but convenient cemetery maps and prohibition tunnels provide action contrivances, convenient angels, and gangster ghosts. The horn and hoof red devil begats back and forth flying daggers stabbing people like it's “Who's on First” – the effects aren't terrible but the finale descends into unnecessary twists and obvious self-sacrifice. Diablo ex machina reincarnation and more historical exposition thrown at the screen become terribly frustrating, silly, and overlong. Though watchable if you accept this is a flawed production that had potential, this should have been a taut, streamlined ninety minutes.
Skip It
The Exorcism of God – I want to appreciate the Mexican setting, Spanish flavor, and Catholic mood of this 2021 parable, but my gosh if this isn't pieces of every other exorcism movie put together. I laughed in the first five minutes over the Exorcist knockoffs and ridiculously sexual opening exorcism – predicting it was a prologue that would to jump to a new many years later focus. Even priests named Michael and Peter are derivative of the maligned The Seventh Day, and it was very easy to zone out and half pay attention when not chuckling at the demon special effects. The earnest performances are so earnest they don't know they are in a horror movie. Sometimes that is good, most of the time it isn't. Every set piece scare is also for the audience – negating any of the priestly conflicts with repeated, increasingly hammy sexual possession shocks. This setting deserved a much better script, and Saban should really stick to Power Rangers instead of trying to make horror movies. How could a studio/distributor release forty-five films in 2022? Even if that was somehow pandemic backlog, terrible movies like this result in such littered streaming. More important than the assembly line industry, however, is the downright offensive, trying to be shocking, scandalous possession and sex ploys toward church abuse victims. A priest claiming a demon made him molest young women in his care is your plot? Who thought rape jokes were a good idea?
