The Devil and Father Amorth (2017) Reviews

• Fact or Fiction? Friedkin Style

  Michael_Elliott2018-04-29

  The Devil and Father Amorth (2017) ** (out of 4) For better or worse, THE EXORCIST will always be the film people think of whenever William Friedkin is discussed. I personally don't think it's his best film but there's no question that it was a ground-breaking motion picture that was the director's most successful at the box office. It's interesting to see that towards the end of his career he would revisit the subject of exorcisms but this time it's the true story of Father Amorth who let Friedkin film his ninth exorcism on a woman. THE DEVIL AND FATHER AMORTH got released to mostly negative reviews with many calling into question the ethics of Friedkin because of a twist that happens towards the end of the picture. I'll get to that more in a minute but there's no doubt that this here is a rather questionable movie for the director to tackle and especially when you consider it's just 69-minutes, which makes it feel more like a Blu-ray extra instead of an actual feature. In fact, Friedkin hasn't taken too kindly to the negative press this film has gotten and has really lashed out at critics. Well, I'm sorry to say it but I have to agree with the negativity surrounding this picture. The first ten or so minutes basically has Friedkin talking about THE EXORCIST including revisiting the locations where it was filmed. He talks about the case that the movie was based on and then we get some archival footage of William Peter Blatty discussing the original case and the film. Umm... okay. I'm really not sure why we needed this stuff unless it was some sort of attempt to bring more attention to this movie. Perhaps the running time wasn't long enough so this was added? Whatever the case is, none of this early footage is of much interest but then we jump to the exorcism that is being performed. We hear from the woman's family as well as Father Amorth who talks about exorcisms and various ones that he has performed. Once we get to the exorcism the main thing that's going to jump out is the voice coming from the woman. Some have question whether it's a sound effect or not but I really don't know. Are these scenes scary? Not at all. What follows is Friedkin talking to a various of doctors and showing them the footage. There's a debate on whether it is some sort of brain issue yet we never really get any test results from the woman herself. The back and forth debate on the religious issue to the medical one is rather interesting but then we get back to the controversial ending. I'm not going to spoil it for people but I must admit that I found it to be incredibly stupid and I didn't buy it at all. It's like one of those monster hunter television shows where nothing ever happens until the moment a camera isn't set up. THE DEVIL AND FATHER AMORTH is a film that I was really looking forward to but it's a real shame that it turned out the way it did.

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• I have concluded that God is Satan

  emsky3332018-07-30

  This will not be popular amongst the religious but... I'm very sceptical when it comes to Satan and demons. Why? Why would Satan possess random Italian lady? A demon maybe, but Satan? No. I'm sure he has better things to do. I hear the argument from religious people that it is to destroy a person's faith, or to steal their souls, but if you look at it logically, how many are lost to possession? Wouldn't it only increase a person's faith in God and religion, exorcisms always seem to be successful, excluding the odd one or two horror stories. The only thing it benefits is religion, and a person's faith in their God. I honestly believe that if Satan existed, he would have a far bigger agenda, like control over a population, making people commit atrocities in his name, he would cause division, hate, encourage discrimination, he would control people through fear of sinning, and threats of eternal torture... Oh wait, that sounds like... RELIGION!

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• The "Devil's" Voice

  notnordan2018-07-30

  The voice effect is literally the same one used for the zombies mode in Call Of Duty. How exactly did they expect anyone to think this is authentic? This is not a documentary, it is a blatant lie.

• You gotta believe!

  dsmcg2018-07-24

  OK, call me a skeptic, but if I taped someone speaking in dual voiced slightly delayed harmonics, that would be the key to the entire project right there. The title would be, Possession proof via audio recording of the voice of Satan! Instead, it goes without discussion or further interest. This could mean one thing; it's a fake. (It sounds exactly like the Satan voice you can buy with vocal effect units at any music store.) Why would he bury the lead? It serves one purpose; keep the believers believing, And that is all the audience you need when you are a charlatan. Meanwhile, those who know a bit about audio or are skeptics will immediately wonder what happened? How did that get skipped over? This is a much more crucial mystery because it needs to be solved before you can take the next step. Friedkin could have not only eliminated this question but sold the whole project on it! But he did not. Again, ask yourself why? The non-religious testimony is dismissive. The religious commenters are useless in this context of legitimizing. The whole thing is poorly made and embarrassing as a project for the director. Apologist involved are on record saying they saw early version pre-post and the voice was there. But would you really expect a charlatan to show it before he put the effect on. Again, extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence. In this day and age, trusting a video tape is just not smart. The woman first found she had a problem during a mass and it coincidentally gets worse during an exorcism. This is presented as good evidence along with her brothers testimony. To wrap up he retells a story where he forgot to bring his camera... The voice now has additional lower pitched voices in addition to the already suspiciously altered voice to really drive it home, again without pointing out how unbelievably important that would be.

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• Don't even bother

  kankrillo-502772018-07-26

  What a fraud. This is the worst thing I've ever seen. It's badly done. All based in a poor voice effect. Only Ignorant people would say this is real.