I don’t think movie producers understand nothing new is ever going to be made where demons enter humans and priests try to get rid of them. No matter what they throw at the wall and hope sticks, possession movies are redundant. The Exorcist ruined that in the way Jaws did for shark movies; it’s just a dead concept.
But here we are again with Shadow of God. Clunky, shopworn and derivative, this devil vs priest narrative is just a boilerplate of overcooked ideas served with a tiny bit of cleverness.
That being said, it’s still better than the last half of Exorcist: Believer.
Mason Harper (Mark O’Brien) is a rough and tumble priest who smokes, drinks and sasses demons when they get out of hand. These demons might be behind the strange happenings going on in the small farming town he lives in. Apparently his dad, who’s supposed to be dead, returns in the flesh to warn Mason about a vindictive demon.
Meanwhile Mason’s ex-girlfriend, Jacqueline Byers (Tania Green) is dealing with some kind of township religious cult who play judge and murderous jury to the sinners who live there. It’s tangential and kind of ties in with the main story but ultimately it doesn’t matter; the end is still confusing.
Shadow of God plays with what seems like a good idea: make the possessive spirit come from heaven instead of hell, but don’t tell the audience if that’s really the case or not—-they have to watch to the end, that is if they can stay awake that long.
Director Michael Peterson must know this sub genre is saturated because he toys with it, making broad strokes to distract us from its weathered beats. I’ll hand it to writer Tim Cairo for attempting to freshen the genre but sadly he’s no Ari Aster.
O’Brien is a good actor, too bad he’s drawn so colorless. Green is used as the girl in peril and as usual she’s over-qualified.
I really liked the evil Adrian Hough, the cult leader who lurks around town devoid of empathy. His merciless nature is truly scary especially when you think there are people like him in the real world.
Shadow of God is like an old gas lawnmower. It still does an okay job of doing what it’s supposed to, but getting it started might not be worth the effort.
Shout out to the FX team though for doing a great homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark in one scene.
Shadow of God is now streaming on Shudder.
