The Pope’s Exorcist (2023)

The Russell Crowe funny accent era is here and I love it. Just a little while ago, Crowe was cast in Thor: Love and Thunder to play Zeus with the same vaguely English accent he used in Gladiator a couple decades ago. Crowe protested this and eventually got his way by agreeing to shoot every scene in the movie twice, once with a “faux upper-class” accent and once with an hilariously over-the-top, effete Greek accent. Boy, sure sounds like the production of that movie went great, doesn’t it? Anyway, he won in the end and I guess not satisfied with one huge swing, Crowe went and made another one: he gave himself just two months to perfect an Italian accent for The Pope’s Exorcist. And that performance once again elevates an otherwise forgettable film.

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The Last Exorcism (2010)

The second half of my PG-13 horror week is 2010’s The Last Exorcism directed by Daniel Stamm. A German filmmaker, Stamm directed this and another low budget indie found footage movie before he kind of disappeared in Hollywood. The Last Exorcism‘s success cast Stamm into M. Night Shyamalan’s orbit just as the cinematic universe trend was taking off, setting in motion the now familiar story of the low budget filmmaker suddenly thrown into a massive studio opportunity. In this case, he was to direct “Reincarnate,” a movie that would have formed the middle chapter of “The Night Chronicles” a series that apparently began with Devil, the scary elevator movie also from 2010. Except “Reincarnate” never got off the ground (although also it apparently hasn’t officially been cancelled) and instead Shyamalan had to make a bunch of movies to rehabilitate his own reputation, leaving Stamm to spend last decade plus grinding it out.

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Drag Me to Hell (2009)

A good PG-13 horror film is a rare and beautiful thing. Because of the way the genre has evolved, as perhaps the only type of movie that can find audiences despite budget, star power, or IP; I think it makes sense that the luminaries are drawn toward taking advantage of the most creative freedom they possibly can… and that means an R rating. But every once in a while, someone who really knows their shit takes a shot at playing within the boundaries that confine most bigger movies. Sam Raimi, hot off doing his Spider-Man trilogy, was extremely up for that challenge when he made Drag Me to Hell. He had worked his spooky quirks into the mainstream and succeeded and naturally the next step was to see if he could bring his new audience with him to something much further out of their comfort zone. So he went and found out exactly how gross a movie can be and still get a PG-13 rating. Bless him for it.

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Constantine (2005)

Honestly, watching Constantine left me with more questions than answers. As one of the dwindling number of comic book super hero movies I hadn’t seen, this has been on my radar ever since it came out 18 years ago. And yet, back then people HATED Constantine. On the other hand, it was really trendy to make fun of Keanu Reeves in those days too, and we all know how wrong the haters were. Now Constantine is a cult classic with some passionate fans and maybe a sequel coming someday. But also, it’s a mid-2000s Alan Moore adaptation, and those tended to always miss the point. So I didn’t know if I would like it or not, and that kept me away until John dared me to take it on. And now that I’m on the other side, I still don’t know how to feel!

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Ninja III: The Domination (1984)

Did you ever see the parody short film Kung Fury? It’s an over-the-top homage to 1980s action movies that has a martial artist detective take on robots, mutants, dinosaurs, and, of course, Hitler, all in the name of revenge. It’s a lot… but also not actually as far from what was really coming out back then as you might think. Ninja III: The Domination, the third and final entry in a anthology series from the legendary low-budget production company Cannon Films, is so relentlessly Eighties you might not actually believe it. Let me tell you about it! And I promise, nothing I write will be an exaggeration, this movie doesn’t need that.

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