The Exorcism of God

The second feature by the Venezuelan director Alejandro Hidalgo, co-written with Santiago Fernández Calvete. It was shot in Latin America on a low budget; Hidalgo says there were two reasons, cost and finding a setting unusual for the genre. Peter Williams is an American priest serving in Mexico. His parishioners treat him almost as a saint. But nobody knows what happened during an exorcism eighteen years earlier, and the guilt he has carried since is the film's real subject. That is where it inverts the genre's habit: the evil is not a creature arriving from outside but something the priest did and hid. The exorcism scenes follow the classic pattern, but the film's interest is in how the church covers its own crime. Will Beinbrink plays the priest and María Gabriela de Faría the woman at the centre of it. It was released on 11 March 2022. Who it is for: viewers who like exorcism films and are curious about ones made outside Hollywood. Who it is not for: anyone seeking originality. The central idea is strong, but the horror scenes reach often for familiar shapes and the effects show the budget.