The devil in its Catholic superstition

Rating: 8/10 (14 February 2010)

That film was a turning point in horror films, in a way. For sure it did not concern some kind of mythical being or character. It was centered on a real person, living next door or up the street. That's the really new element, and even so, there had been some antecedents. The second new element here is the strongly Catholic context, and it is not clear at all that the Catholic Church is not used as a justification, a stamp of truth posted on the film, in other words an alibi. I find that slightly embarrassing today for the Catholic Church and all Catholics in the world. Many Catholics consider that demons, and daemons, and so on along that line, are nothing but a pagan heritage in the Christian approach of the world. The last point is not new at all. It is the close association of these demons to something found in some archaeological site in North Iraq, in other words in Moslem territory. This can be seen today as an anti-Moslem bias and it is absolutely unacceptable. On that point, like on the previous one, the film has aged tremendously. Apart from that the film was well made and still is well made. The suspense and the progression of the plot are quite clear. We understand more or less that the demon takes possession of the younger exorcist and that this priest prefers killing himself to being possessed. There are though several points that remain unanswered and difficult to accept. Why did that demon take possession of a priest? Wasn't it more comfortable to be in a young girl? And how can the priest justify his suicide in any way? If God enables a demon to take possession of one of his priests, that priest has to wait for God to liberate him, and committing suicide is not that kind of a liberation. That's why I will classify this film among the films that played an important role when they came out and even accumulated some fame because of it, but that have today aged tremendously and lost most of their appeal. The list of those is long.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Paris 8 Saint Denis, University Paris 12 Créteil, CEGID