Director: William Brent Bell
Year: 2012
Country: USA/Italy/Mexico/Romania
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Possession; Faux Documentary
Plot:
Agreeing to film a special documentary, a woman takes a film-crew to Rome to investigate the truth about what happened to her mother years ago and finds that a far more dangerous and deadly cause for her condition is now targeting her and the others leading to them all facing dangerous consequences.
This here was quite an enjoyable and intriguing tale. One of the more interesting elements here is the usual fare associated with these types of films in that the central premise is rather enjoyable. This main setup, about a woman who goes around looking for answers to a long-held question about an incident in her past, makes this one go off on a strong start featuring the girl going through the trip to the church where she runs into the priests for the remainder of the film. That manages to introduce all the fun in the second half where it goes nicely into the different effects of how they go about their routine within the church, as the viewpoint of them taking classes to learn more about the differences between the different states of being required in order for them to initiate an exorcism.
This goes into them not only on their first exorcism trip with the crew to watch them conduct it that has a lot to like with their really enjoyable sequence inside the basement of the home where the sequence takes place and how that leads into starting in on her mothers' case at her insistence. That provides some of the best material in the film where their attempted exorcism of the mother is exceptionally chilling and has some solid action with the continuous missteps they take involving her getting the upperhand on the situation by throwing everyone around the room or providing overt supernatural action that's incredibly fun to watch. As the finale works in some rather impressive scenes here showing far more normal possession aspects especially at the hospital finale, there's quite a lot to like with this one.
That said, there are still some big problems with this one. The biggest issue here is the film's insistence on filming this as a faux documentary when it really didn't need to be. The idea of here following the two guys around and showing how the different treatments they provide work on their patients serves this well enough but the format of doing so as a found-footage/faux documentary style really devalues the impact of these scenes. That these scenes are done through multiple cameras anyway manages to make that factor even more prominent which is what makes for quite a disappointing feature with underwhelming main aspect of the film. As well, with this being so heavily dependent on the exorcisms the film can feel exceptionally bland for long stretches of time, really lowering this one significantly.
While there’s some minor issues at play with this one, the fact that there's still enough to enjoy here with the film's setup and some solid supernatural action that really does overcome some of the flaws here. Give this one a watch if you're a fan of these supernatural efforts or curious about it, while those that are put off by the flaws featured here should heed caution.
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