[Fantastic Fest] The Exorcism of God: A Two-Fisted Devilish Good Time

What do you get when you combine The Exorcist I &III and combine it with the wild ass ride of Evil Dead? You get truly wild and explosive The Exorcism of God. A film that constantly subverts all expectations you have about the tired exorcism sub-genre and constantly dials it up over the course of its rapidly paced run time.

Exorcism of God is a wild picture. It doesn’t play by any set rules, or back away from going entirely too far. It loves to take it to the edge and then fucking jump over.

The film follows a Father Peter Williams (Will Beinbrink) who performs and exorcism on a young woman in the films first moments. During the exorcism he falls victim to the trickery and seduction of the demon and ends up having sex with the possessed girl. Eventually, he ends up exorcising the demon and getting rid of it… or so he thinks. This scene is played almost comically like a mirror of The Exorcist. The bed room, the house, the room, the bed even the make-up is similar to that of Regan’s. There is even the iconic scene of the priest standing outside of the house with the bedroom’s light shining down on him. As comical as the mirroring is, Exorcism of God still manages to get under your skin with haunting imagery and special effects.

Years later, when the priest thinks he has moved past that part of his life, the same demon pops up again, possessing another young woman. It’s up to him to stop a demon that knows him intimately and, most importantly, knows his weaknesses.

Director, Alejandro Hidalgo crafts one hell of an exorcism film that never suffers any slowdowns and never gives way to boredom. It’s a breakneck film with a lot of big scares. He found a creative way to take the entire genre and turn it on its ear by reversing the roles of the priest and the demon as the title would suggest. The result is a terrifying and completely wild ride.

There is a really great sense of humor running through the film, that I really loved. There is a playfulness between priests Father Michael Lewis (Joseph Marcell) and fellow priest Father Peter Williams (Will Beinbrink). The film does this constantly, it doesn’t outright become a comedy by any means but it does have a very specific tone that keeps smart laughs coming.

The makeup effects for Exorcism of God are incredible. It doesn’t turn to cheap CG to achieve its big moments. For example, there is a demon that looks like Jesus mixed with a Sam Raimi created Deadite. I’ve been calling him Deadite Jesus, and boy, was he a big fan pleaser during Fantastic Fest. It’s not every day you see Jesus possessed by a demon and it is an effective character. An effective character that gets one of the films biggest jump scares. In fact, it might go down as jump scare of the year which brought to mind The Exorcist III and the iconic huge scare that includes a a nurse, a killer and a huge pair of shears.

The film was near fantastic, minus the overly used blue and grey color pallet that we see way too much of when it comes to this sort of film. Exorcism of God is a great film and one that seemed bold in every direction it took, minus its grey and blue dower color scheme. I think that a wilder set of color grading would have gone a long way to match the films outside of the box tone.

In a lot of ways, this film is Exorcist I and III squeezed together, leaving only the good parts intact. For any other filmmaker that might have been enough of a backboard to craft a film out of but, Hidalgo pushes that up a notch and mixes it with Sam Raimi’s energetic and never ceasing approach to action. Hidalgo takes all these elements and creates a cauldron filled with big horror and enormous good times.

The Exorcism of God is a two-fisted devilish good time. The special effects really push the film along, making for believable set pieces and characters and creates a demon that is actually a memorable villain. The performances in the film are all effectively executed to guide the insane film exactly where it needs to be to create the best Exorcism film I have seen since The Exorcist III. It’s a tremendous take on the genre that proves there is still life in the world of cinematic exorcisms.