Review of The Rite (1969) by Deanna L — 29 Jan 2012

'The Rite' starts off interesting and gradually goes down hill until the catastrophic pantomime 'final showdown'. Anthony Hopkins gives a performance that goes from creepy to downright bizarre, and I mean crackers. Colin O'Donoghue is rather flat as the doubter Michael Kovak, I didn't really care about him at all and his battle with faith. The problem with this film is something shared with most films about Exorcism, they don't feel original when it comes to the Exorcism scenes, they basically do everything Friedkin did. Halloween and Scream are both 'slasher' movies but with their own unique style, The Innocents and Poltergeist are 'haunted house' movies but miles apart, so it seems strange that every film about Exorcism does nothing new when it comes to the key scenes, it's just second rate Friedkin.

However, this film includes a scene in which Anthony Hopkins backhands a little girl and sends her flying, which is always worth watching.