Movies
‘The Vatican Tapes’ Is Yet Another Generic Possession Film
The problem with doing a possession movie nowadays is that the sub-genre has been done to death. When I was catching up on 2014 horror movies back in December, I watched no less than seven possession films (The Possession of Michael King, The Taking of Deborah Logan, Deliver Us From Evil, Devil’s Due, The Quiet Ones, Asmodexia and At The Devil’s Door). Watching that many possession films in the span of two weeks really made me realize that these movies aren’t even trying to do anything different with the sub-genre. Lionsgate’s new horror film The Vatican Tapes, out this weekend, is no different. It is yet another generic possession film with barely any surprises.
Angela (Olivia Taylor Dudley) is celebrating her birthday with her boyfriend (John Patrick Amedori) and father (Dougray Scott) one day when she cuts her finger on a knife. After going to the hospital to get stitches, she begins acting strangely. Ravens start flying close to her, people injure themselves after talking to her, she contorts her body, attempts to drown babies, etc. After seeking counsel from a priest (Michael Peña), they begin to suspect that she is possessed by a demon or the Devil Himself.
Sound familiar? It’s not that The Vatican Tapes is actively bad. On the contrary, it’s actually competently directed and has decently acted (though some of the actors look bored). It’s just so dull. There is nothing here that you haven’t seen in plenty of other possession films many times before.
Also, I’m not one to hound on a horror movie for being PG-13. Movies need to be seen by a wide audience to make money. I get that, but it bothers me when the rating takes you out of the film.
***MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD***
There is a scene in The Vatican Tapes where a character grabs two light bulbs and jams them into his eyes. The camera is focused on this character’s torso the entire time, with no blood dripping or blood stains on the character’s hands. It was so obviously shot and edited to keep the PG-13 rating that it takes you out of the film. It just felt staged
***END SPOILERS***
Olivia Taylor Dudley does get some creepy moments in the film, one of which being an extended sequence where she is whispering to a wall, but she’s no Linda Blair, Jennifer Carpenter, or even Ashley Bell (The Last Exorcism). There’s an unintentionally hilarious moment involving Angela regurgitating whole eggs that looks like it was taken right out of Airplane! Dougray Scott also gets some good moments as her worrying father. Both Michael Peña and Djimon Hounsou are serviceable, but not much is asked from either of them.
One thing The Vatican Tapes has going for it is its ending. The final five or ten minutes show such potential for a better sequel (yes, I said it) that it just reinforces how bland everything that came before it is. What would have made The Vatican Tapes better is if the first 80 minutes were relegated to a prologue, and then the last ten minutes expanded into a full-length feature. What we get instead is The Vatican Tapes in its present form, and if you can manage to keep yourself awake throughout the whole thing then you deserve a medal.
With this, The Gallows and the Poltergeist remake, it’s been a pretty bad summer for horror movies. Let’s hope Sinister 2 can pull an 11th hour home run for the genre next month.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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