THE VATICAN TAPES. Port of Cinematic Nightmares

The Vatican Tapes will not go down in cinema history. They probably weren’t made with that ambition in mind either (if they were made with any ambition at all). Contemporary satanic cinema relies on a formula so thoroughly exhausted that the only sensible option seems to be parody. Mark Neveldine, the director of The Vatican Tapes, doesn’t appear to realize this. With a straight face, he hacks his way through the mess scattered across the screenplay’s pages. The plot dutifully moves through three predictable stages: possession – failed medical diagnosis – exorcisms. An attractive teenage girl (Olivia Taylor Dudley) is attacked by a crow, which mutilates her index finger.

It’s worth noting that the girl has an entirely ordinary name, one that carries absolutely no associations—especially in a horror film dealing with religious themes. In a movie whose main antagonist is Satan. Her name is Angela.

The day after the unusual injury, the heroine begins to behave strangely. She drinks a lot of water and acts provocatively toward her conservative father, Roger. Meanwhile, her phlegmatic boyfriend—a completely anonymous character about whom nothing interesting can be said, yet whom I should mention because he’s given a fair amount of screen time—shows a moderate level of concern for Angela over the course of the film. He probably could care a bit more, but he’s somewhat frightened and seems helpless. Fascinating. He is also dominated by his despotic, likely future father-in-law. I’m delving unnecessarily into the meanders of this plot.

Angela ends up at St. Mary’s Hospital (of course). There, her case begins to interest Father Lozano (Michael Peña), who notices symptoms of demonic possession in her behavior. Cameras installed throughout the building document the clear evolution of the protagonist. Lozano reports the case to the appropriate Vatican department, represented by unintentionally caricatural priest-exorcists: Cardinal Bruun (the tragic Peter Andersson) and Vicar Imani (the comical Djimon Hounsou).

These two specialists spot, in footage sent from the American hospital, a crow perched on a window—identified by them as a “symbol of Satan’s mission.” At that very moment, they themselves become, for me, a symbol of the Dark Ages. The older and more experienced Cardinal Bruun travels to the United States to drive the devil from Angela’s soul. In one line of dialogue, he mentions that he himself was possessed in his youth, so he knows what he’ll be dealing with. Absurd.

I don’t think this was an intentional directorial choice, but in The Vatican Tapes it is the exorcists who seem the most deranged—religious extremists for whom the words of Holy Scripture have eclipsed the entire world. Everything in this film is expressed through excess and overstatement. From the screenplay to the acting. It serves no aesthetic function, nor does it point toward any broader metaphor. It is merely evidence of the director’s ignorance and the screenwriter’s blunt pen. This is further indicated by the banal, infantile symbolism the film employs: from the heroine’s name, through the crow and the forty-day coma, to the crosses aggressively shoved into the frame.

The absolute nadir arrives during the exorcism itself, when Cardinal Bruun notices that something is blocking Angela’s throat. He reaches into her mouth and pulls out an egg. Immediately afterward, the possessed girl spits out two more. According to the exorcist, the three together signify rebirth and the Holy Trinity. That was the perfect moment for me to abandon the screening. Because the line had been crossed. Because I have some respect for myself.

What kept me watching, however, was curiosity—whether The Vatican Tapes would truly hit rock bottom. It did. Captain Neveldine safely crossed the Abyss and docked at the quay in the Port of Cinematic Nightmares.