Russell Crowe is on view this Wednesday, May 10, in the horror film “The Vatican Exorcist”. The actor plays Father Gabriele Amorth in this film inspired by the real archives of the Vatican’s chief exorcist.
Russell Crowe, Oscar winner in 2001 for his role in Gladiator, continues to surprise us. At 59, the New Zealand actor took his first steps in horror cinema with The Vatican Exorcist by Julius Avery, to whom we already owe The Samaritan with Sylvester Stallone.
Here, Crowe gives the reply to Daniel Zovatto (Father Esquibel), Alex Essoe (Julia) and Franco Nero in the role of the Pope.
Inspired by the archives of Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s chief exorcist, this horror film follows Father Amorth in his investigation following the terrifying discovery of a possessed young boy. His investigations will lead him to unveil an age-old conspiracy that the Vatican has desperately tried to keep in oblivion.
Forbidden to children under 12, the feature film is based on the books of Father Gabriele Amorth, An exorcist tells (1992) and New Tales of an Exorcist (1993). In total, the priest has published more than twenty works (alone or with others), of which 7 have been translated into French.
sony The Vatican Exorcist
The most famous exorcist
Born in 1925 in Modena, Italy into a very pious family, Gabriele Amorth joined the Italian Resistance when he was only 18 years old. At the end of the Second World War, he joined the Young Christian Democrats.
Also a law graduate, Gabriele Amorth entered holy orders in January 1954. Trained by Father Candido Amantini, Father Amorth was appointed exorcist of the diocese of Rome in June 1986 by Cardinal Ugo Poletti.
He has carried out more than 70,000 exorcisms since his appointment to this post but admits in 2008 that he has not faced “than a hundred times to real cases of demonic possessions“.
Qualified as an official exorcist of the Vatican, the priest founded, in 1991, the International Association of Exorcists. His works recounting his various experiences have been republished several times.
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A documentary directed by William Friedkin…
In 2016, William Friedkin, director of the cult film The Exorcist, made a documentary about the priest entitled The Devil and Father Amorth. During filming, and with the authorization of the Holy See, the filmmaker films, for the first time in history, a real exorcism session performed by Father Amorth on a 46-year-old woman.
But in the middle of filming, the priest was hospitalized and died of pulmonary complications on September 16, 2016. He is still considered the most famous exorcist to this day.
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The Vatican Exorcist is the first fiction that tells the story of Father Amorth and could well give rise to sequels if the film by Julius Avery (with a budget of $18 million) does well at the box office.
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Real facts and others fictitious
The feature film is indeed inspired by the first two works of Gabriele Amorth and recounts several events, some real and others fictitious. From the Spanish Inquisition to the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, renamed Rosaria in the film (to whom Netflix has also devoted the documentary series Emanuela Orlandi, the disappeared from the Vatican), Julius Avery’s feature film continues to make referring to real events. This leaves doubts hanging over the entire length of the film.
Died at the age of 91, Father Amorth documented his various exorcisms, so it is quite possible that other films inspired by his stories will see the light of day, like the Conjuring films based on the files of the Husband Warren. The final scene of The Exorcist of the Vatican also leaves the door open to other films.