Prey for the Devil
In response to a global rise in demonic possessions, the Catholic Church reopens exorcism schools to train priests in the Rite of Exorcism. On this spiritual battlefield, an unlikely warrior rises: a young nun, Sister Ann. Thrust onto the spiritual frontline with fellow student Father Dante, Sister Ann finds herself in a battle for the soul of a young girl and soon realizes the Devil has her right where he wants her.
- Released: 2022-10-28
- Runtime: 120 minutes
- Genre: Horror, Thrillers
- Stars: Jacqueline Byers, Virginia Madsen, Ben Cross, Colin Salmon, Christian Navarro, Nicholas Ralph, Lisa Palfrey, Tom Forbes, Velizar Binev, Owen Davis, Debora Zhecheva, Cora Kirk, Posy Taylor, Elizabeth Gibson
- Director: Daniel Stamm
Comments
- iceman-johnson - 8 January 2023
i'd rather be possessed than watch this again.
A very box standard exorcism movie with a terrible plot, very lame visual effects and extremely pradictable jump scares. And the twist was pathetic.
I found the main character very unlikable and her actions to be over the top. I get they were trying to make the character a bit rebellious by her wearing dr marten boots under her robes, giving sick children secret sweets and her sneaking into exorcism class that's only meant for the fellas but all i got from her character was she was very disrespectful unless she got what she wanted and personally i thought she came across as very childish and unlikable. She is a nun and knows the ways of the church but she answers back her mother superior, steals classified documents and goes against any warnings given to her by people higher up and not once is she punished and only given a small telling off for causing somebody's death and instead of realistically thrown out the church for being insubordinate. She's also constantly held in high regard by everybody because apparently and has a gift.
The gift she apparently has is being super nice and telling the possessed its ok to feel shame. In the hundreds of years the church has dealt with exorcisms not once did anybody think of telling the possessed in a calm voice its ok ....sure.
There's nothing that really stands out about her from anybody else but everybody around her wont stop kissing her butt for some odd reason and keep stating she has something special and is amazing when she's never really shown doing anything that proves it apart from talking down a demon....who never really left and came back worse!!!
Talking about the people around her, they all seem completely useless in this film. You could pull every character out of this movie except the lead and the little girl and get the same result. They are only there to be in the background or to highlight how great the lead is.
They just seem to pop in and out of scenes every so often to praise or ask for help from the lead.
I was really expecting after the lead kept answering back to her mother superior and things got a bit tense with them that this would anger the mother superior and she would become an antagonist and would try her hardest to sabotage our leads mission to become an exorcist because she still believes in the old ways of the church, but no. She ends up praising the lead and tells father quinn she apparently worries about her...sure.
They also seem to set up some characters as foes with our lead but then in a heartbeat they like her for no reason.
The little girl is not scary and im sure its her first acting role as well because she was just terrible. Pulling stupid faces and stretching your mouth wide while bogging your eyes just looks stupid and not remotely scary. The crappy cgi they added to her made it even worse and you can tell they even noticed this themselves and Eventually they just dressed her up as a cosplay regan and tell her to stand there growling, it was really cringe and nobody would think she was frightening or intimidating even young teenagers.
Now onto father, ex gang member turned priest dante. They couldn't emasculate a character anymore if they tried. I mean this guy was so useless it hurt to watch. 95% of the time he just stood there looking scared or crying and constantly had to be prompted by the lead to do stuff, the other 5% of the time he's making smiley faces to the lead like he's in awe of her even though she's done absolutely nothing to gain this awe. I honestly thought he had a crush on her but no, he just really liked her because apparently she's special.... sure.
Father Quinn played by colin salmon is great in this and his voice is fantastic but he is very underused and hes also smitten by the lead Just Like father dante. He just seems to only stand there or appear to add little bits to the story. He rarely really puts his foot down or takes control in what's going like a normal teacher would or should do, he just seems to let the lead do what she wants. It would have been better if we saw there was a bit of a push and shove situation between him and the lead where they eventually see eye to eye but noooo, once again he just likes her because shes amazing for some reason.
Virginia madsen also makes and appearance in this playing the church psychiatrist who also has every other characters traits. She is also smitten with the lead for no reason and really does nothing but pop in and out to praise the lead.
Spoilers.... so It turns out that the little girl is the daughter of our lead and is the result of a one night stand she had when she was like 15 . How do we know this? Did she take a DNA Paternity test? Find some Hospital or adoption papers or records that prove this? Nope.
The little girl gave father dante some rosary beads after she killed everybody in an ambulance. And they were the same as the ones that our lead gave her daughter when she put her up for adoption. Years before. This is apparently enough evidence to know that this child is her love child 100%. It's never even questioned or double checked, she's just absolutely convinced hands down that the girl is her child without any follow up even though she knows the possessed can manifest things at will and uses manipulation to trick anybody it meets. This is pretty much lore in the possessed movie/story genre so how she and even father dante just went with it is complete bullsh**t and seems completely out of character for our lead whos somebody who claims to see the angles that others don't.
The part where she "exorcises" father dantes sister who then goes on to commit suicide is another part that makes absolutely no sense and shows that all the characters act completely off. Father dantes mum complains to the church about our leads pathetic attempt at a exorcism and she's summons to the high priest with the big ears where all the church cast are. Shes told that her actions caused father dantes sisters death because she thought she cured her so nobody kept an eye on her and she commited suicide.this was not an exorcism sanctioned by the church and It's not mentioned but that leaves them wide open to being sued by father dantes mother. Instead of going all fire and brimstone on her they give our lead a small dressing down and then she tells THEM what's going to be her punishment and thats shes going back to another nunnery and they all just accept it.... try that at your job if your on the verge of being fired for being insubordinate and see what happens lol.
In the end as our lead eventually takes the demon from the little girl and now shes possesed with it and apparently her mum is haunting her and telling her to fight the demon.. our lead trusts this advice from this voice who sounds like the women who brutally abused her as a child and she pulls herself into a pool of holy water they had in a crypt in the bottom of the school. This somehow stops her being possessed and father dante pulls her out before she drowns and she of course lives.
Here's the problem. Did nobody ever think of dunking one of these possessed people in the holy water in the hundreds of years its been there or does it only work if you fight your own demons at the same time or do you need to have the ghost of a schizophrenic person there with you?
Afterwards everything and everyone is fine and once again everybody takes a minute to praise our lead and tell her how special she is and how proud they are and she also gets a promotion to the vatican ....sure.
She takes a cab to go to the airport and while sitting in traffic she spots an elderly women just standing in the street staring her this is followed by a mass of quick cut shots and a possessed guy appears in the taxi next to her and the elderly women is now at the window and she reaches for her cross like shes packing heat and holds it up like she's about unload some biblical bullets in them pesky demons but then its cuts to black and the movie ends.
I honestly can't see anybody finding this interesting ,scary or thought provoking,the story and twist is trash and it uses jumpscares to a unprecedented scale, i swear there's like one every few seconds and the big ones you can see a mile off. The lead comes of as a smug know it all and the rest of the cast only seem to be there to suck up to her. There were points in the film that seemed like they were going in another direction but nothing ever came of it. Maybe if they had elaborated on this points and made some sort of subplot out of them and make the story a bit more complex there would be a better more fleshed out movie.
If you enjoy paranormal films this might be one to give a miss they really lost focus on the story by trying to make a point that really didn't need to be made. I'm not going to elaborate on this point but im sure you now what they were pushing for.
Its a 2 star rating from me. - jrvidal-91192 - 26 December 2022
There's Potential
After reading a few comments I felt that it was not just in the raiding. When it comes to the production of scary movies it never hits the audience due to religious affiliations or there expectations of being scared not being met.
The movie did a great job of introducing a powerful female protagonist. As she faces her past which comes to haunt her. Furthermore, the story did a great job of not taking every spiritual situation lightly. Which for me was a great point that is not met in other movies and felt more of an action movie.
Not sure if that's what they were going for but I enjoyed every part of it and did not want to pull away.
My point being that although the movie would not meet any thriller/horror lovers expectation. I still feel that the story was very fulfilling and the protagonist being very likeable. I would be excited to see another movie being made.
