With novelty its shaky foundation and anti-Catholicism its motivation, The Exorcism is a meta-horror demonic possession movie that is neither smart nor scary.

The Exorcism isn’t a horror movie. It is an activist driven winge. Director Joshua John Miller and writer M.A. Fortin take aim at the Catholic Church by using perhaps the most pro-Catholic movie of all time – The Exorcist – as a vessel to proclaim their message that it’s the evil Church that needs to be exorcised.

In doing so The Exorcism joins a growing list of recent religious horror movies (Immaculate, Saint Maude) that are thoroughly anti-Catholic in the perspective that the Church doesn’t cleanse the world of evil, but rather stains it. Just like those films, however, The Exorcism is too enamoured in its “message” instead of being a good movie.

Miller and Fortin play cute with their screed by going down the meta-route with The Exorcism centred on a (fictional, thankfully) remake of The Exorcist that becomes a cursed project leading to the death of its leading man (Adrian Pasdar.)

Brought in to take over the leading role is Anthony Miller (Russell Crowe) a once-in-demand actor whose crippling alcoholism saw him fall out of favour in Hollywood. When Anthony starts to exhibit disturbing behaviour on and off the set, his rebellious teenage daughter Lee (Ryan Simpkins) suspects he has fallen off the wagon, only to find there is a sinister demonic presence at play.

For those who don’t know, Joshua John Miller is the son of Jason Miller, who played tortured priest Father Karras in The Exorcist, and also had a well-documented battle with the bottle. On top of exploiting his father’s substance abuse to add “depth” to his avatar lead character, Miller also suggests that his father may have been the victim of clerical abuse during his time as an altar boy, with The Exorcism featuring scenes of a young Anthony Miller manhandled by a Catholic priest.

In his second exorcism movie in as many years, Crowe tries to add some heft to the shallow proceedings, yet only succeeds in reminding how far down the Hollywood totem-pole he has fallen. Crowe once quipped during the mid-2000s how he was disappointed with Robert De Niro’s choice of film roles. Crowe is now eating those words, along with everything else (seemingly), with the Oscar winner taking those early career comparisons to Marlon Brando a tad too literally.

The rest of The Exorcism cast fail to add anything to the proceedings. Ryan Simpkins is all unpleasant know-it-all smugness as a teenage (yeah, right!) rebel who throughout the film ridicules Catholic doctrine and belief, until daddy turns demon. Sam Worthington is wasted in an underwritten supporting role, and David Hyde Pearce is all bug eyes and no conviction as a Catholic priest brought in to supervise the film.

Originally known as ‘The Georgetown Project’, the blandly titled The Exorcism is a pathetic attempt at undercutting the spiritual power of the original The Exorcist movie, with Miller and Fortin too focused on delivering an anti-Catholic hit piece instead of a movie worthy of its source inspiration.