The Vatican Tapes (2015)

I haven't had such low expectations for a horror movie in a while. The trailer wasn't flattering at all and made it look like an incredibly generic found footage exorcism flick, and now that I've seen it, I can confirm that that is only half true. Despite the title, it's not a found footage movie, but it is a generic possession movie. In The Vatican Tapes, 20-something year-old Angela (get it?) gets possessed by a demon, but it's not just any demon; it's the Anti-Christ himself. A priest and two Vatican exorcists team up to try to exorcise Angela before it wreaks havoc on humanity. Surprisingly, The Vatican Tapes is actually a movie that gets better as it progresses, although that's really not saying too much. The first act of the film is its worst. Every exorcism movie cliché you could possibly think of is stuffed into twenty excruciating minutes, and it definitely made me fear for the rest of the movie. After that, The Vatican Tapes does get more interesting ever so slightly and has a couple of decent scares because Angela is now in a mental hospital, but still nothing we haven't seen from other, better movies. A black raven has to announce the next "scary scene," which completely ruins any tension the film might have had because the audience is now going to expect the next big obnoxious jump scare. The plot eventually decides that there should be an exorcism scene, and after a particularly lazy attempt to say why Angela is discharged and sent back home, the audience finally gets what they paid for. The exorcism scene itself takes up the last 20 minutes of the movie. It's admittedly pretty cool to watch since there are a few creepy and intense parts, and the pace slows down a bit to allow some atmosphere to build up. There's still this inescapable feeling that everything is still all too familiar to anyone who's seen a good possession movie. Then the ending comes. The ending is actually the only part of The Vatican Tapes that I wholeheartedly enjoyed. It ended the movie in a rather dark and powerful way, so much so that I'd like to see a sequel just to see where they could go with that ending. Even with the surprisingly good ending, it's not enough to warrant a recommendation for The Vatican Tapes, a been-there-done-that exorcism movie that has about as much soul as the possessed Angela. Another day, another exorcism.

Fmovies: I feel like I should not take a jab about how cheap the movie feels, but it feels cheap.

This is ironic considering how amazing the special effects were in the film. That's the thing about film making today. Any kid with a good lap top can due really good special effects.

It's too bad the same cannot be said of any kid with a camera. I'm glad this was not a found footage movie, though some of the film is seen though security cam footage and personal footage taken by head strikers and an exorcist. It's a straight narrative, but treating it like a found footage movie would have giving the filmmakers a better excuse.

I thought the acting talent in the movie was pretty good. They did the best with a story that had too many badly played angles. The demon they selected to exorcise was a little too bold and would have made them horror legends if they pulled it off right, but that did not happen.

Overall, watching this girl's soul being taken over by evil was not interesting at all. It was not creepy or scary. I just wanted it to be over with.

You immediately question the direction of the movie because of it's focus on surveillance footage only to have no real purpose of the footage. The camera work is terrible. The main character's hair, why is it always side parted and perfect? The entire theater booed when it ended. Too many plain plots. The music score is cheap. Too many scenes of the Vatican for no reason. The use of an actor from 90210 only makes movies less believable. The casting director should be fired and never work in Hollywood. Props to the CGI people for doing what they could with this baddie. They all need acting coaches.

This movie probably was very fun and funny to film.

I never write reviews. Wrote this one because I became so frustrating with this movie. It has no integrity and no body. Very empty. Should have gone straight to VHS, not even DVD or netflix.

The Vatican Tapes fmovies. Greetings from Lithuania.

"The Vatican Tapes" (2015) is a very enjoyable "possession / exorcism" movie. While the plot is not really original, the ending kinda was original, really original. It has not bad mood for this kind of horror movie, and although it has clichés all around, the overall experience was positive.

Michael Peña is totally miscast in this movie, he is one of the most reliable "comic reliefs" in industry at the moment, so it is hard to take him seriously in priest robe with serious face, there were some scenes with him near the end when i just wanted to chuckle - not that he is a bad actor, he is solid one, but at this moment in his carrier this kind of movie is clearly not his strongest side. Djimon Hounsou is also a bit miscast, although this 2 times Oscar nominee is much more believable in this role. Others were OK, nothing special. Directing was also OK, and i kinda liked cinematography and editing, they create this feeling of uncertainty.

Overall, i kinda see why "The Vatican Tapes" has such a lot rating at IMDb (4.5 at the moment) - lots of recent horror movies about possession and exorcism are shoot in "found footage" style, but this one plays straight and its overall look is inconsistent, there are many close ups and shaky camera and some weird shoots, but as a whole i liked this style and as i have mentioned it creates this tension and feeling of uncertainty. Ending was also kinda original in my opinion. While this flick isn't the most original or best in its genre, it was a pretty descent one.

I was attracted by the idea of a horror film directed by Mark Neveldine, whose previous filmography includes the delirious and very entertaining films Crank and Crank: High Voltage (which he co- directed with Brian Taylor). Unfortunately, The Vatican Tapes ended up being a tedious horror film with a rancid screenplay which recycles every single cliché from the films about satanic possession: the tormented priest, the manifestations... No. I'm not going to waste time mentioning all the clichés, because we all know them by heart. It will be enough with saying that The Vatican Tapes is completely lacking of suspense and creativity. The performances are absolutely apathetic and lacking of conviction; not even the usually brilliant actors Michael Peña and Djimon Hounsou display any enthusiasm or credibility in their roles. Another problem from this movie is the fact that Neveldine employs extreme close-ups over and over again, creating an atmosphere which couldn't achieve the desired effect of anxiety; it just gets confusing and boring due to its visual monotony. In conclusion, The Vatican Tapes is a weak and unsatisfactory film, and I can't recommend it. If Neveldine wanted to experiment with horror cinema, he should have made Crank 3: Possessed; I'm sure that Chev Chelios wouldn't have stayed in his bed contorting himself waiting for a demon to consume him. In the Crank universe, Chelios possesses demons.

Possession films in the past such as "The Devil Inside" have proved to be sick, and freak out the audience with the display of it's demonic possession. PG-13 possession films have proved to be quite sick, and perhaps good as well, hence "The Last Exorcism". This possession film, "The Vatican Tapes" comes out solid, but tends to be quite clichéd.

Starting off with the story of this film, of which seems to be quite simple. Our main character becomes possessed, and it progressively gets worse, and worse overtime. Her family, with the aid of some priests must figure out what's wrong and stop it. It seems very simple, but the way the story is executed in this film was very solid, for what it was, a simple, straight to the point plot. As the story continues, we get more in depth with the demons personality, per say. We get to see what it can do, and how it possesses it's powers to it's advantage. Overall, the story / plot is quite simple, but without spoiling anything, the movie carries it all out solidly, holding it's grasp.

The acting of this film, in my opinion was fine. Just fine. We get some pretty decent actors combining together in this film, which is great and all, but the situations they had to face lead they're acting to be a bit sketchy at points. Some parts of the film, for example when the actors fall back, scared, you kind of stare at the movie asking yourself .. "What?" Parts of which they DO seem serious, just seems funny toward the audience watching. In this case, they SEEM to be overacting when certain points come, but are actually not, instead are seeming that way due to the specific situation they're being put in. But in conclusion to this element, the situations that came to horror [ The scares, exorcism, etc. ] it was fine, not fantastic.

The scares of this movie, is defiantly something to conclude with. It's pretty much clichéd. You've pretty much seen this tactic in many films before. Dose this perhaps ring a bell? A bird flying at the window? Through it? Yea. We've seen this before, at least once. There's also, once again, without spoiling anything some other scares that have been seen before, on top of that, some of them are even horribly placed in time, making a failed attempt at scaring the audience, instead of scaring them, giving them a laugh even. There are also some scares floating around that will make you jump, but then when you realize what it was that made you jump, you'd ask yourself "How did that scare me!?" Either way, the point being there are few, to no scares that will get you deep in the core in this film. In conclusion, if your looking to get scared, from either tension itself, it won't happen. If you want an ear blasting loud noise, here you go! Another cliché method themed film filled with those!

In conclusion. The movie had simple flaws of which are extremely clichéd, however, the movie held grip with a solid execution, as well as some decent demonic possession methods. It dose hold many elements you typically see in other possession films, sure, but it was solid, and managed to keep the audience entertained. One way or another. It wasn't that bad of a film, but it lacked in critical horror elements, like scares, and tension. As there were none. But never the less, this horror flick was not bad at all. Just.. flawed deeply, and held back due to it's PG-13 rating.