Review of The Vatican Tapes (2015) by Chris F — 22 Oct 2015

The Vatican Tapes is a supernatural horror film that tries to be thrilling but is left with a horrible direction, terrible acting, and its poorly written with dull dialogue. It is rare for a good supernatural horror movie that is about someone getting possessed and doing some horrifying things. This film does not add anything special that would make it worth mentioning. It also does not help, that Mark Neveldineâ(TM)s is directing which his previous films were not that great from the Crank films, Gamer, and the second Ghost Rider movie. Neveldineâ(TM)s direction of some crazy camera angles and quick editing to add the intensity to the film was a miss. There are scenes when you see a quick camera movement speeding down the hallway ceiling or spinning around characters, which did not work well in the film. It just left the overall movie feeling like an amateur one. The acting was dull in the film; it just looked like the actors were bored and simply speaking out their dialogue from a tedious script and an easy paycheck. Even though, Michael Pena and Djimon Hounsou are talented actors, but there performance was a waste here.

The plot follows Angela (Olivia Taylor Dudley) after accidently cutting herself at her birthday party. She begins to express some disturbing behaviors, not even her father Roger (Douglas Scott) or her boyfriend Peter (John Patrick Amedori) can figure out. After the mental institution was not able to help her. Father Oscar (Michael Pena) comes in, to try to save the poor girl soul and trying to stop the satanic force that is trying to cause chaos.

Even with the ridiculous boring script, the characters were poorly written, and uninteresting. Sure, there is some drama in there of Roger hating his daughterâ(TM)s boyfriend. Then, there is Father Oscar, who he also served in the military but needed a way out after seeing so many horrible experiences. At the same time, the script was not even sure which direction it wanted to go as well. It does end in a boring cliffhanger or if it was supposedly a cliffhanger that is trying to end for a sequel. Overall, nothing really worked in the film, not even at least that can make it entertaining or thrilling in a way.