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THE EXORCISM
61 Plays5 months ago
What an excellent day for filming an exorcism. THE Exorcism, in fact! And that's the closest thing to a joke you're getting, because the duo behind The Final Girls is back with another deeply personal-- and far much colder-- look at a young woman connecting with a parent in showbiz. Joshua Miller and M.A. Fortin team up with Russell Crowe and a seemingly endless list of character actors to tell the story of a newly-sober man trying to get himself on the right track by taking what could be the role of his career, the priest in a remake of a famous exorcism movie, no matter what demons from his past it may awaken. Unable to win respect at home or on set, dodging a well-intentioned holy man, a director more interested in getting a rise out of him than his acting, and an alleged "curse" that's already claimed one actor, it's the perfect environment for a man to lose himself... or be found.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Launch
00:00:12
Speaker
if
00:00:16
Speaker
know i'm sorry da um afraid i can't do that
00:00:28
Speaker
truly thee did alph snows always look like like cinnamon or pecan rolls to you oh absolutely i would always think pecan rolls Yeah, it always kind of made me hungry. Whenever I see Alf to this day, I just kind of want to go get up a
Discussion on 'The Exorcism' and Missing Host
00:00:42
Speaker
conroll. Anyway, welcome to Box Office Pulp, your one-stop podcast for movies, madness, moxie, and tonight, Satan. Or, as Kirk Hammett said in that one song from the Spawn soundtrack,
00:00:55
Speaker
It's actually an underrated soundtrack, but we're not here to talk about the Spawn soundtrack as much as I would like to. We are Cody-less for this one because he's actually possessed by Satan, and by that I mean he's drunk playing with Legos. We assume.
Autobiographical Elements in the Film
00:01:11
Speaker
But we are here to talk about the new movie from Vertigo Releasing starring Russell Crowe and written and directed by Joshua John Miller and the team of The Final Girls, a bop favorite here, The Exorcism, that also features a primo David Hyde Pierce performance. Jump-scare David Hyde Pierce. You know, I expect him to just slide into frame like that, having aged as we all have.
00:01:39
Speaker
I like to think he's the one who came up with the limp for his care, but um we're probably going to launch into spoilers on this one pretty hardcore because it's really hard to avoid if we want to talk about what's really fucking interesting about this movie, which is a whole lot. If you don't know who Joshua John Miller is, he is the son of Jason Miller. who of course famously played Father Taurus in The Exorcist.
Psychological Exploration vs Supernatural Elements
00:02:04
Speaker
And as the final girls was, had not or all of but autobiographical elements or anything, but was very much about his grieving process for his father and being able to watch his father in a famous horror film.
00:02:18
Speaker
This dives so much hardcore, or much more hardcore into that, that it is very much... I don't want to, say, be hyperbolic and say that it's a therapy session as a film, but it feels very much like a therapy session as a film. But whenever I first began ah watching the exorcism, I hadn't even put two and two together that Joshua Miller was Jason Miller's father. The whole time I'm just thinking, this was written by Homer from Near Dark. That's wild. It wasn't until like towards the end of the third act and when I was a googling the cast and crew that I made that connection. And I was still thinking for like 20 minutes, this is very much a script that is
00:03:06
Speaker
a writer working through some stuff. The point where I was honestly, if I could say this movie has an Achilles heel, I was disappointed when the supernatural showed up because I could have watched just a simple character piece with these characters and exploring these themes. Yeah, I was reminded very much of, not to like start off with the criticism, but Just to get that out of the way as to why this movie is actually like super worth talking about and seeking out.
Marketing vs Film's Actual Tone
00:03:34
Speaker
I was reminded of the Alan Moore quote about why he left Swamp Thing, which was he wanted to write very serious like theological environmental stories, but the muck monster kept getting in the way. And I felt that about Satan or Moloch, I guess.
00:03:49
Speaker
i I started to root for the movie not having supernatural elements and those just being circumstantial and just appearing supernatural and just really being about someone who's being re-traumatized and going through a lot of mental turmoil and starting to break down. Not to say that the Satan of it all wasn't fun or not to say that it couldn't it couldn't add to what the film was working at and what the film
Handling of Trauma and Actor's Role
00:04:18
Speaker
was saying. it very It very much could have, but it did feel like there was... It was getting in the way of something that was a little bit more interesting than just some traditional spooks because there is so... Based on like the um marketing, I really thought the movie was... I actually thought the movie might be end up being tongue-in-cheek, if anything. Like, oh, it's an actor like who's like playing the part of a priest in a movie and then supernatural stuff starts to happen. It's Russell Crowe less than a year after the Pope's Exorcist.
00:04:48
Speaker
Yeah, it felt very planned and around that. you you besides like Besides finding out that Josh Miller wrote it, and on top of that, the amount of personal baggage, for lack of a better term, that he kind of threw in there and is is working through, but in the film itself, you also have elements of... Honestly, the hook for me is a guy who was molested by a priest, becomes an actor then has to play a priest in an exorcism movie and this severely triggers his PTSD.
Unique Story Elements and Focus
00:05:22
Speaker
That was fascinating when that came up in the film. Like that is such an interesting element and you're playing with like you have Adam Goldberg playing this like really piece of shit director who and the film is very much commenting and you can tell it's written by an actor and someone who's been around a lot of film sets.
00:05:38
Speaker
Playing with the idea of like, we always, we like when actors bring their personal trauma to a role. Like we all, like I brought up with this, like Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, like, oh, he'd be great because he was an alcoholic. Never stopping to think like how weird it is that like you re-traumatizing somebody by having them reenact elements of their trauma. And for him it was like, you You could see him like blinch when he just saw a priest outfit and then he has to look at himself in a mirror wearing a priest outfit like all of just that alone like supports the plot of a movie by itself. I know my my partner and I's first thoughts as soon as the credits were rolling were you know.
00:06:19
Speaker
All of the traditional exorcism stuff was really cool to see in the context of a more psychological story like this, and it's it is very rare. I think this may be the only time I've seen an exorcist story where it's the deep parent and not the child who is the subject of of the possession.
Film's Ending and Budget Constraints
00:06:43
Speaker
I know a little bit of that in Hereditary, but i wouldn't I wouldn't really call that a possession movie per se. and they're like yeah That stuff was really cool, but honestly, if the movie had been just a psychological descent that was punctuated with an act of violence, I think that would that would have been enough. And in some ways, I think that probably would have been a little bit more satisfying because there are they do seem to be in an unfortunate middle ground where they chose not to keep it as low key as they could have, but they also don't seem to have the budget or resources to make it as bigger as the inclusion of the supernatural, I think, would neately necessitate. So while the ending is satisfying, you are kind of left with a feeling of,
00:07:31
Speaker
maybe could have used a bit more oomph if this was as far as it was going to go. Yeah, it feels like it ah rushes to its conclusion and not in a like storytelling beat sort of way, but just this is all they were able to do considering the constraints of trying to do something supernaturally that large on such a small scale. And for like the way they were going about it, which was very interesting, like having it take place on the film set and and having like some some roles reversed. and
00:08:03
Speaker
They're playing like a lot like ah with a lot of interesting imagery there at the end, but and having essentially Russell Crowe's character, Tony, like pretty much like exercising himself through battling a priest, essentially. And that, to a degree, is is is satisfying if you were going to include the the supernatural, but it doesn't have the same oomph. It just kind of like it feels like it gets to a place and then starts to immediately – it truncates itself. Like you go from point A to point C, not that there even feels like something's missing. It's just boom, boom, boom done. But but speaking on the ending, like what what was your like takeaway of the final scene, more or less like after the exorcism and sort of like the place the characters are in at the end. Once again, spoilers for anybody listening. Ah.
00:08:51
Speaker
i don't know if I don't know what necessarily the intent may have been, but
Character Development Post-Exorcism
00:08:57
Speaker
the ending felt very bittersweet to me. Yeah. Like it kind of felt like you're watching Jack Torrance driving away with his family from the Overlook Hotel going, okay, we beat the evil hotel. Things are okay now. Yeah. It's like, yes, ah hey Pro was able to get his was able to temporarily exorcise this demon and get the very visceral catharsis of being able to murder a priest with his bare hands and get away with it.
00:09:29
Speaker
but there's something about the how literal that catharsis is that makes it seem false and seem like something the kind of catharsis that makes you feel like the work is done when you you haven't actually grown at all. yeah Like if if this were a movie that were less smart I could take that the whole finale on its face and just be like okay well he the demons gone and he was able to work out to his PTSD he's gonna get sober for his daughter now but
00:10:01
Speaker
In a movie that is this deliberate and this smart, you don't go for an ending like that.
Depth in Protagonist's Struggles
00:10:07
Speaker
in yeah In a movie that's this deliberate and this smart, I feel like that's letting the character off way too easy to give him that convenient an out. Definitely. And that's and kind of like born on it and not torn in like whether or not I liked it or not. I do feel like maybe and a little bit more of a coda would have been good. I know how they got away with cold-blooded murder. But at the same time, I don't know if they are ending purposely bittersweet. Like there's – because there's a lot of visual communication that's going on during that last scene on top of Pro's voiceover as he's talking to a priest. And it's hard to tell like what to glean from that information. Like he's saying that he and his daughter are better than they ever been. But she's like – it looks like she's emailing ah another copy of a another draft of a script she wrote to him.
00:11:01
Speaker
And obviously, some times past, her hair is different. We were living in LA, but she has like this look like she's emailing it, but doesn't isn't really knowing if she's going to get a response. And I don't know if that's if you're supposed to be kind of reading it that way. Like what he's saying and what's actually true are still kind of two different things.
Authenticity in Actor's Catharsis
00:11:21
Speaker
Like he hasn't completely conquered his demon. It's especially whenever you're dealing with a character whose demons aren't as narrowly defined as most um but most characters troubled in the way he is normally are in movies like this like he's not just and a guy with an alcohol problem he's not just a guy who you know has childhood trauma he's working through
00:11:47
Speaker
This is very clearly a dude who's made a lot of bad decisions and a lot of those bad decisions have folded in on other bad decisions. Like, it doesn't seem like this is a guy whose problems are going to be solved by just getting sober. Yeah. One of the things I really appreciated about this movie having been very much written by an actor, because from all the stories I have heard over the years about this specific type of dude, an actor deciding to clean up his act by playing a priest for a couple of weeks and getting into that headspace rings really true.
Film's Layers and Missed Opportunities
00:12:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:27
Speaker
Okay, if I'm a superhero in my next movie, that will solve my marriage, I'm pretty sure. yeah And one thing I one big thing that I want to commend the movie about and there's actually a lot that it's it's weird is I'm very I'm soft on a lot of aspects of the movie like but only because I feel like it could have really been something special like on the level of know the final girls or or something even more than that. If it was able to like stick its landing a little bit, but one of the things I love about it is Rose character. You have a guy who's done a lot of shitty things and unlike a lot of portrayals of this the thing while characters will react.
00:13:07
Speaker
to him very negatively, like his daughter. Or people will talk about second chances and and things like that. The movie itself is not painting him as good or bad. Yeah. It's showing you where all of these negative issues, like his alcoholism and the treatment of his family, where they all stemmed from. And you see him actively trying
Portrayal of Mental Health Issues
00:13:31
Speaker
to get better. You see that he's on meds. The same meds I take, by the way. Those were accurate pros acts that was put into his mouth. And you see him really fucking trying, and you see the movie is not making excuses for the shitty things he's done, but it's also not blaming him for the things that he has done. And that is definitely where you're getting the writing and directing coming from someone who has had that experience with a loved one.
00:13:55
Speaker
who knows like that mental health lens because it's true in reality he's not he's someone with a lot of problems it does not make him it does not make him evil and that's what's so interesting about like the possession part of the story is that it's an evil entity overtaking what is a very broken human being and that's where i think if you were to include if you had to include possession where that could have been like pumped up a little bit more, like why Moloch is an all every time I think of Moloch, I think of their I know, like, yes, he's long running mythological demon, like all this stuff. But I just go to there is a Mortal Kombat character named Moloch. And he had a rock in his hand at all times, like it was tied to his hand. And that's what I think of. I always go to the Watchman villa and Moloch. He was played by Matt Fruer once.
00:14:49
Speaker
But yeah, you you you have him painted this way.
Acting Challenges and Internal Conflicts
00:14:52
Speaker
And I really appreciate from purely like just a mental health awareness sort of lens, not even just like trying to do a film in a better way, showing a character like that and not demonizing him to no pun intended, but to it It would have been very easy to like just make him a shitty human being who has to overcome stuff, but you actually feel bad for him through a large portion of the movie, even when he's doing shitty things. There's actually times where you kind of feel like his daughter could maybe even try harder to understand him. Even though the film makes it clear, like but she still has her own trauma to get through as well, so you don't you're not blaming her thing. It's very deaf how it's able to handle that.
00:15:36
Speaker
At the same time, Crow also, it is very expertly communicated that that's probably a difficult dude to get to know and to get to open up no matter how surface level friendly he is, which is something I was really kind of taken with, especially in the first act, is how both through Crow's performance and through the screenplay, you capture something that I very rarely see in films about movies, which is the portrayal of acting as just a job, yeah and actors as people with a with a job to do. it's It's kind of a go-to stereotype for actors that most of them are complete empty vessels.
00:16:25
Speaker
And I'm sure in a lot of cases that is true, but I think with a lot of those guys, it's the same thing you see in blue collar guys who don't really know who they are, don't really seem to have much going on upstairs unless they are at work.
Acting vs Possession and Identity
00:16:41
Speaker
You put a job in front of them and then they know who they are and they know who to do. They know what to do. I think a lot of actors are like that and you definitely get that impression from Crow in this movie. Like, that is just a dude who needs a job to do. And he is somebody who is probably disassociated a whole great deal from the various traumas of his life, so what's inside of him even he doesn't have access to? Like, when he's running down
00:17:09
Speaker
In the scenes where he's running down his sins and the scenes where people are telling him his sins to his face to try to get a reaction out of them, they're sins of avoidance. They're going out on a bender while your wife is dying of cancer. They're not talking to your troubled daughter. or You're crawling into a bottle whenever you should be ah working the only thing you're good at. yeah But again, it's it's it's also a really interesting starting point for a possession movie. and but And particularly one about an actor, because you know what is acting other than being being somebody else? you know Running away from who you are and just going to somebody else's skin and latching onto possession on top of that, which is literally someone coming in and walking around in your skin.
Art of Acting vs Method Acting
00:17:51
Speaker
And it was very cool to me that acting is portrayed as not bullshit, which I think it's weird. A lot of movies about making movies, actors are never artists, which is very strange to me. And it always comes across as bitterness to me on the on the right. Yeah, it does very good jocks versus nerd thing. It's always really transparent. Yeah, and but this you actually see that, no, like this dude breaks down lines. Like he gets, he breaks down what the character is. You see him and his daughter have serious conversations about like the script and she's making fun of it, but he's taking it very like seriously. Like, no, I'm going to figure this guy out. And the, like the advice of like, what is the meaning of the line? And that's what helps them memorize things.
00:18:42
Speaker
And seeing that coming up against Goldberg's bullshit method acting and bullying, which runs so counter to the very practical view of acting that you've seen up until that point. But yeah again again, this could have been just the entire movie and I would have been fascinated. Yeah, there's so much interesting shit in here. And and that's the steal of Joe Bob line, but the the plot's gotten away in the story a little bit. But I but i actually really – the more time has passed since I watched it, the more the movie's grown on me because there's so much to think about. Like, you can't stop thinking about what the movie gives to you. Even if it doesn't quite stick to the landing, I mean it definitely doesn't, at at least in my opinion.
Personal Experiences in Filmmaking
00:19:27
Speaker
But there's so many different layers and levels to it. You can watch the film from various perspectives. You can watch it as like this father dynamic. You can watch it from like as acting and art form type of dynamic. like a mental health dynamic, there's there's a lot of different angles, you can watch it from the point of view of Rose character, you can watch it from the point of view of daughter's character, but you can watch it from the point of view of Joshua Miller's perspective, which is probably the most interesting one you can take. Oh, God, I was getting so many flashbacks to stories of the production of Exorcist three, and those scenes where they're watching Crow just going,
00:20:08
Speaker
He doesn't even know the lines, oh my god, we can't shoot around this. That stings and that scene is seen as so awkward because you can tell that's that's just either a thing Miller saw himself or had reported to him a week later after it happened. Yeah, it feels very like this really personal. ah Both like the like you have like you see scenes like on set where that's happening and then you see like daily screening rooms and his daughter walks in and Goldberg's character's talking about having to like replace him and like shitting all over him.
Analysis of Russell Crowe's Performance
00:20:45
Speaker
It's all done in such a specific way. It's clearly shit that's um had to have been bouncing around his head. ever since, like he had to have seen some of this stuff in person. Also, kudos to Crow for doing something which is deceptively, which seems deceptively very easy, but is actually really fucking difficult. Being a mediocre actor convincingly. Yeah. Because everyone either is too vain to actually give a bad performance as a mediocre actor, or they go too hammy with it.
00:21:19
Speaker
But no, you you totally buy that Crow in those scenes does not think that he's doing a very good job. Like his character knows that he's blowing every scene he's in, but you can tell he's still trying. That's a hard thing to capture. barry Yeah, that was... that's why um It felt like like there's a little bit of like meta with Crow playing that part, but and it speaks it speaks to him, like, his talent, because, like you said, it is hard to get that across, but you can see that shit in his eyes during those scenes. ah It's hard to convey that you don't know the lines you're saying, even though what you're saying is memorized from a script right now.
00:22:01
Speaker
But, and you you see that he's trying to change it up every take, or he's trying not to, like, mumble through
Career Reflections and Alternate Path
00:22:06
Speaker
the part. And that actually makes it more tragic, because you can kind of tell, like, this this guy who probably did have it at some point, and he knows, like, he's fucking up. Well, that's what makes the fact that this wasn't written for Crow so fascinating, because if you wouldn't have told me that, I would have just assumed, oh, yeah, this is, like, very deliberately, like, It was like a Nicolas Cage thing, like they met with Crow and they wrote the script based on like how he feels about his career and all that. Is this actor seems very much like an Earth 2 version of Crow who never met Ron Howard? Yeah. This is Russell Crowe, if virtuosity was as far as the career went. Yeah, do an episode on virtuosity one day.
00:22:47
Speaker
That's our tie-in with Gladiator 2. For some reason, I feel like Crow himself would be really happy with us. You cannot tell me Russell Crow did not have the time of his life menacing Denzel in the future as the ultimate serial killer. He ate glass. What we're saying is we, here at Box Office Pulp, would like to remake Virtuosity with the same cast. Just, honestly, I don't know if I could actually improve on it. It's kind of perfect. I'm sorry, we went off on a tangent about Virtuosity here for a second. But yes, the exorcism. Honestly, I would say, for me, but it would be a matter of, like, tempering expectations. And I usually don't like to say that, because anybody can watch a movie and, like, come away like a glowing review, of course.
Tempered Recommendation of the Film
00:23:31
Speaker
But if you're already if you weren't going to give it like a chance, at least go in with tempered expectations and look at what the film is doing and saying because it's fucking fascinating. yeah if you are a big fan of the Exorcist series like I am, or if you just like ah any kind of slow burn, psychological horror movie, I would definitely seek it out. Or if again, like me, you are so endlessly bored with Exorcism movies and just want to see one that does something new with the formula. I would definitely recommend this.
00:24:06
Speaker
Hilarious to think this is a better exorcism movie than the last exorcist movie that came out a few months ago. We also get to see Russell Crowe battle David Hyde Pierce for like 30 seconds, and I think that's worth the price of admission alone, quite
Humorous Debate: David Hyde Pierce vs Kevin McDonald
00:24:19
Speaker
frankly. Okay, Mike, to lead us out, I want you to settle an argument between my partner and I. Who wins in a drunken back alley bare knuckle brawl? David Hyde Pierce or Kevin McDonald? Ooh! Just two wet noodles slapping against each other in the darkness. I'm gonna say Kevin McDonald. Reason being, David Hyde Pierce would refuse to fight back.
00:24:45
Speaker
he would do well He would just speak to you in that Abe Sapien voice of his. I've seen David Hyde Pierce in many things beyond Frasier, yet it's either he sounds exactly like Niles in a role or he sounds exactly like Abe. This was an Abe Sapien role. This was a very much an Abe Sapien role. I wish his character was on screen more purely for that reason. He was kind of a character from his own movie.
Podcast Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:25:14
Speaker
Just kinda wanted to go fall around. He was playing the part that would go to David k Cronenberg in a different era. Oh god, you're right. My god, they're rebuilding the body of Christ.
00:25:26
Speaker
Eh, we also gotta to do an episode of Resurrection. But anyway, this has been Box Office
Podcast Availability and Sponsorship
00:25:31
Speaker
Pulp. And if you God help you like this show, you can of course find us on all of the places fine podcasts can be found. And if you do, please rate and review us. It helps. If you just want to yell at us, that's fine. I'll take hate mail. Please tell me I've been a bad boy. Send your letters to Mike Napier has been a bad boy. Care of Box Office Pulp. Uh, make sure you rub it across your, let's face it, balls before sending it to me. I like the musk. You know, I'm making this joke, and as I'm making it, I'm like, somebody's gonna do that, and it's gonna ruin my life. Joke's on you! It's already ruined. Get the hell out of here. And like that? He's gone.
00:26:12
Speaker
The baby I hear, the blues are calling, tall salad and scrambled eggs. The fuck eats tall salad and scrambled eggs at the same time? I've always been very confused by that.
00:26:23
Speaker
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Speaker
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