Movie review: The Rite ***

The Rite  ***

Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Colin O’Donoghue, Alice Braga
Director: Mikael Hafstrom
Rated: PG-13
Showing: Speciality Cinema Thursday, February 3 at 2/6:15/9:15pm. Week of Friday, February 4 - Daily at 2:30/6:15/ 9:15pm except Sunday 4/7pm. For more information about film times, call 292-2135.
Runtime: 127 minutes
Horror/drama

Movie goers have been fascinated by films about demonic possession since The Exorcist spun its ugly head on our screens in 1973.

The cult classic — still regarded as one of the scariest films ever made — has spawned a series of contenders, such as The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, The Last Exorcism, Dominion and Possessed.

The newest pretender to the throne is The Rite, which is based on a true story, although not one about an actual exorcism.

It is inspired by Matt Baglio’s book The Rite: The Making Of A Modern Exorcism. It focuses on the Vatican’s decision in 2007 to reinstruct the clergy on expelling demons with the intention of having an exorcist in every diocese. 

Baglio’s book follows a California priest tasked with training to become a local exorcist and who learns about demonic possession from a veteran in Rome.

This priest inspires the movie’s Father Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue), a reluctant and skeptical cleric sent to the Vatican to learn to perform exorcisms.

In Rome, he meets unorthodox Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins, Silence Of The Lambs), who makes him face the evil of the devil and his own faith head-on when the duo is tasked with helping a young woman feared to be possessed by a demon.

Director Mikael Hafstrom is an experienced horror director — 1408, Drowning Ghost — and he keeps things suitably dark, gloomy and creepy. All the exorcism cliches are here — contortion, speaking in tongues, projectile vomiting — and there is nothing original or groundbreaking.

But Anthony Hopkins is good as the sage yet dangerous mentor, while newcomer O’Donoghue also impresses as the young priest with more faith in psychiatrists than his Bible.

Watch if you liked: The Exorcism Of Emily Rose.