SPOILER ALERT: This story discusses major plot points, including the ending for “The Pope’s Exorcist” currently playing in theaters.
Director Julius Avery has “only seen parts” of William Friedkin’s classic “The Exorcist.”
“I’m not a massive aficionado of exorcist movies,” he tells Variety.
Yet despite that, his latest release, “The Pope’s Exorcist,” which is based on Gabriele Amorth’s books “An Exorcist Tells His Story” and “An Exorcist: More Stories,” follows the Vatican’s chief exorcist to Spain. Played by Russell Crowe, Father Amorth teams up with a priest, Father Esquibel (Daniel Zovatto), to investigate a young mother, Julia (Alex Essoe), and her children, who have recently become possessed by a powerful demon.
Avery says of Amorth, the Catholic priest who served for 30 years as the head exorcist of the Diocese of Rome, “I found it interesting that this was a real job, that there is a chief exorcist at the Vatican. I’m not sure how much I believe in all of this. I find it fascinating that science can only explain 98% of the stuff out there. There is 2% that we can not explain, and only 2% of possession cases are real. Even if it were 0.001%, that would terrify me.”
That fascination was enough for Avery to hop on board and helm the film. And adding Crowe into the mix was the cherry on top.
“Russell has this raw magnetism that really draws you in,” he says. “So, even though we’re throwing all these fantastical elements at the character, he brings a real sense of believability to that world that we’ve created.”
As Father Amorth, Crowe battles to save Julia’s children Henry and Amy from the demon’s grasp. His investigation leads him into the pits of an abbey, where he learns the church has been covering up a secret: The site is one of many that hold fallen angels who have crashed to Earth and have been entombed for an eternity and are trying to get out. The abbey is holding one of the top demons.
That was the perfect setup for Avery to go completely “over the top, bonkers” with a grand showdown as the film’s finale. Says Avery, “It felt like there could be this epic battle between good and evil. In the final battle, you’ve got Russell, the guy who played Gladiator, taking on the King of Hell, the Devil, in this cool setting.”
While he hadn’t seen the entirety of Friedkin’s film, he did see “The Exorcist III,” which left him inspired. “I loved it because it had lots of action and over-the-top fantastical elements, and I was drawn to that spectacle.”
Avery says he was also inspired by J.J Abrams and how the filmmaker invests in grounding his characters. “He hammers home that you have to care for your characters before you throw them to hell.” He adds, “If you ground them, then you buy into the world where they’re fighting giant ants. The directors I admire understand that character always comes before spectacle.”
The director saw Amorth as a cross between Dirty Harry and Columbo.
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