The Exorcism review: Russell Crowe makes his second Catholic demon-hunting film in a year worth watching

Personally, I’ve derived great joy from the fact Russell Crowe has played an exorcist twice in the past year. It’s unpredictable and without the calculated air of an actor attempting to renegotiate their public image. Maybe you can draw a direct, logical line between the heartthrob in the leather skirt in Gladiator, through to the slightly beaten down but no less cool detective of The Nice Guys, and on to this new image of him wielding a crucifix and muttering “in nomine patris” while a child levitates over a bed. Maybe you can’t.

But the thing with Crowe is that he commits, whatever the circumstances. There wasn’t a single breath of hesitation in his Italian-accented, scooter-riding priest in The Pope’s Exorcist, even in the face of all that Catholic camp. A visiting demon claims he’s everyone’s worst nightmare. Crowe’s character, in full deadpan, shoots back: “My worst nightmare is France winning the World Cup.”

His new film, The Exorcism, shares almost no DNA with The Pope’s Exorcist. This is satanic horror played with an almost entirely straight face, its aspirations dialled up from B-movie to William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. It’s directed and co-written by Joshua John Miller, whose father Jason Miller played Father Damien Karras in The Exorcist (and, later, The Exorcist III). And it’s inspired, in part, by the rumours that the set of Friedkin’s film was cursed, following a destructive fire, nine deaths, and multiple injuries.

Crowe plays Anthony Miller, an actor recently discharged from rehab, and now on a quest for career resuscitation and spiritual absolution by playing the Max von Sydow role in what is a thinly veiled remake of The Exorcist. Yet, Anthony arrives with the devil already on his back – Miller, who co-wrote the script with his partner and collaborator MA Fortin, heavily implies that Anthony’s issues with addiction stem from sexual abuse by a priest in his childhood. And when he’s repeatedly triggered by a narcissist director (Adam Goldberg) who whispers his worst memories back in his ear, Anthony finds himself pushed in frightening, distinctly demonic directions.

There’s a question, established early on in The Exorcism, of whether Anthony’s behaviour (a lot of blankly standing around and muttering in Latin) is really the work of the ancient sacrificial deity Moloch, or if it’s his religious trauma and interconnected addiction struggles violently bursting back to life. There’s something painfully familiar in the eyes of his estranged child, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), who’s returned home from school after getting kicked out on thematically significant charges. And Crowe sells every inch of a man whose skin is puckered with emotional wounds, but their causes buried deep.

There’s a natural eeriness to the cold, dead, dark spaces of the sound stage, and one particular kill that’s unexpected and nasty. But The Exorcism collapses in on itself by the time it reaches its climactic demon expulsion, and it struggles to resolve the cruelty of Anthony’s past with the kindly guidance of the film-within-the-film’s Catholic advisor, Father Conor (David Hyde Pierce, so disarmingly gentle that it reminds us why he was simply too good for the Frasier reboot). It hints at (but never confirms) a revelation that would fundamentally change the film’s outlook on the church. The film may be ideologically confusing, but Crowe never falters. If exorcisms become a full-time gig for him, you won’t see me complain.

Dir: Joshua John Miller. Starring: Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg, Adrian Pasdar, David Hyde Pierce. 15, 95 mins.

‘The Exorcism’ is in cinemas from 21 June