Review of The Rite (2011) by Filipeneto — 13 Feb 2018

The evil that we can not see.

In this film we see the story of Michael Kovak (Colin O'Donoghue), a seminarian with a wavering faith that goes to the Vatican in order to learn the Catholic ritual of exorcism. In Rome, he meets Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins), who will face the disease and to test his faith.

This is another horror film that deals with the theme of exorcism, a common practice in almost all religions used to fight evil demons and spirits, preventing them from doing harm to other people or their souls. The theme has given masterful films ("The Exorcist" is the most famous) and this is also very good. The scares are many, but what we see in this film is more suspense, tension, and not exactly scares. The devil is something that never takes shape, you never see, except for the famous mule appears in a single scene, which thickens the suspense: if we are afraid of what we see, we have more fear of what we can not see, of what may be anywhere. The biggest negative review of the film are almost romantic scenes of Kovak and Angeline (Alice Braga), a female journalist, because ultimately create the expectation of a novel, a sub-plot that never happens.