The Rite Movie Review

Anthony Hopkins is the exorcist

The Rite Movie Review

Yesterday, I watched a scary movie about demon exorcisms. The whole theme of the movie is that not even the Vatican is safe from Demonic influence. The movie does not have any serious gory themes. Although, you can cut tension with a butter knife. The story begins with the preparation of a dead body for a funeral. Our main character, Micheal Kovak decides to enter a priest collage to run away from his father's busyness. The day he was going to quit school, a girl gets run over and he performs the last rites. His mentor seeing the way he handled it sends him to a special course at the Vatican.

Colin O'Donoghue as Micheal Kovak performing the last rites

In the Vatican, he takes an exorcism class. During class, the teacher notices that Kovak was a skeptic. He sends Kovak to Father Lucas (a Veteran Jesuit exorcist). The first exorcism he saw was one on a pregnant teenage girl (who we later found out was raped by her father). Its interesting the instruction given by the Father Lucas. Father Lucas told Kovak not to look at the demon in the eye. The reason is that the eyes are the windows into the soul. Thus, if you look at the possessed in the eye there is a chance that the demon might enter your soul.

Marta Gastini's debut as a possessed maiden

Aside from the prayers, the most important thing one needs is to get the name. Once you have the demons' name the rest is easy. Its interesting the weird contortions performed by the pregnant chick. Her head did not turn 360 degrees. Father Lucas found it hilarious Kovak's dismay at not seeing green vomit (or roof walking). The maiden did have extra sensory perception . Father Lucas tested this for Kovak by having the girl guess what was inside the bag (inside was Kovak's $1).

Father Lucas at the hospital distraught

The movie is not too far out there for a bit. In an incident with a child, Kovak discovered that the priest had inserted a frog inside the pillow. He was annoyed at the lack of integrity of the priest. He thought the boy was making up the thing about the demon donkey. The story went sour in the last exorcism session of the pregnant girl. He thought the girl was crazy. For this reason, he asked the devil to prove that he existed . From then on, the movie went down hill. At night, the maiden bleed to death and the baby died. Father Lucas had warned Kovak not to speak to the demon. Now the girl was gone and Father Lucas was pretty shaken.

In the other half of the movie, the devil tries to prove his existence to Kovak. He fills his room with frogs. When he goes outside the place was washed with snow and he saw the hoof marks of the Donkey demon. To make matters worse, the boy who saw the Donkey predicted accurately the death of Kovak's father. The final proof occurred when Father Lucas became possessed. With his faith shaken by the death of the girl, he became prone to the devil's influence.

Kovak and the Reporter exorcism Father Lucas

Kovak and his reporter friend thus had to perform the exorcism themselves. Now that one was a real exorcisms (with the voices, the teleportation , the super strength and the eerie skin color). Oh, I forgot to mention our possessed priest is the actor who played Hannibal Lector. That guy is one scary possessed guy. Anyhow,  through the exorcisms Kovak found his faith. He had originally lost it because of his mother's death (plus, it was pretty traumatic because his daddy had him help in the preparations of the corpse). Well, the priest recovers. He goes to become an exorcist in Chicago. The end!!

Oh, this movie is based on real events. The moral of the story is that not believing in the devil will not save you from him. They described the beast like a thief in the night. He comes to your house and steals away in the darkness. His greatest accomplishment was convincing all that he did not exist. The second moral of the story is that its a real bad idea to dare the daredevil (no relations to Marvel's daredevil. It is all just a figure of speech). Kovak wanted proof and he got it.

Vomiting Nails

I remember in one scene his dead father called him over the phone. The doctor informing him of his old man's death told Kovak that his daddy had kicked the bucket six hours ago. Oh, three demons appeared in the rite. The first one was Judas Cross. He was inside the pregnant girl. I am not too certain. It seem that Judas became a demon after killing himself over his guilt for selling out the lord. The cross came into play when the maiden vomited nails. Its interesting how the girl made a cross pose whenever the demon was acting up. The Donkey demon seems to be like Freedy Krueger. He does his thing through dreams. Plus, he affects the weather (he made snow appear in the summer).

Possessed Boy with Hoof marks

You know, this donkey demon is the inverse of another infamous donkey from the Bible (I don't mean the donkey that Mary rode in during the Nativity and the Flight of Egypt). There is a story of a man riding a donkey. The Donkey saw a demon by the end of the road. To protect his owner he refused to move forward. The owner got angry and started whipping it. Then, an angel gave the power of speech to the donkey. Through the donkey the angel rebuke the human.The last one was Baal. He was the demon that possessed the priest. Baal is said to be a Duke in hell. He is also said to be the frost dragon deity of the Canaanites. He did not do frost magic. Although, had the exorcism taken too long his dragon form would have breached though the portal separation our world and hell.

Anthony Hopkins as Father Lucas

You know, I read that this movie only gets good reviews among the Catholic community. I suppose that the Protestants don't have a rich exorcism culture. Its hilarious that when it comes down to it, all call a Catholic priest to take care of a demon. Still, in this country atheism , skepticism or agnostic is fashionable. I guess it bothers this type of audience the realization they cannot escape the devil (or other kinds of demons) by not believing in him. All I know, is that all religions agree in the existence of demons. Its interesting food for thought. In any case, The Rite deserves 5 star rating.

The Rite Inspired by True Events