Every so often, a movie comes along that reminds you demons might not be the real problem. The real problem is that someone greenlit a script that looks like it was assembled from every exorcism cliché on Earth, then shouted, “But what if the priest feels really, really guilty this time?”
The Exorcism of God desperately wants to be The Exorcist meets The Passion of the Priest’s Poor Life Choices, but mostly it ends up as a holy soap opera with jump scares. Think of it as Catholic guilt fanfiction, only somehow less subtle.
The Cold Open: Father, Son, and Holy Catastrophe
We start in 2003, with Father Peter Williams, an American priest in Mexico, called to exorcise Magali Velasquez. You know the drill:
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Dim lighting
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Latin chanting
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A possessed woman doing the classic “eat glass, stare into your soul” routine
Things go wrong. Spectacularly wrong. Not just “the demon jumps into the priest” wrong, but “the priest has sex with the demon-possessed woman” wrong.
Now, to be clear, the film treats this as:
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A tragic moment of supernatural seduction
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A terrible sin weighing on Peter’s soul
But on screen it plays like:
Demon: “What if instead of spinning my head, I try moral ruin with bonus pregnancy?”
Priest: “I really shouldn’t—oh, fine.”
It’s meant to be horrifying and complex. It mostly feels like the scriptwriter saying, “How can we crank the guilt up to nuclear?” and then breaking the knob.
Eighteen Years Later: Saint of the Side-Eye
Cut to eighteen years later. Peter is now the beloved priest of a small Mexican town. He runs charities, helps kids, and behaves like a man overcompensating so hard you can practically hear the rosary beads clattering.
Supernatural stuff starts bubbling up again:
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Kids are mysteriously sick
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A possessed woman named Esperanza in the local prison starts channeling her inner demon
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Strange occurrences hint that whatever happened in 2003 is back for round two
Then comes the big reveal:
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Esperanza is Peter’s daughter
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Magali—yes, possessed-exorcism-night Magali—is her mother
So not only did Peter fall to temptation while mid-exorcism, the result of that sin has come back eighteen years later as a fully possessed adult in need of help. It’s like if your worst drunk text came back as a grown human with glowing eyes and a Latin-speaking demon roommate.
Subtle? No. Theological? Kind of. Soap operatic? Absolutely.
Enter Father Lewis: Exorcist, Plot Device, Professional Hypocrite
With demons spreading through the prison like hellish Wi-Fi, Peter calls in backup: Father Michael Lewis, played by Joseph Marcell, who strolls in like he took a wrong turn leaving a Shakespeare production and ended up in a haunted telenovela.
Lewis is supposed to be the seasoned demon-fighter, the old pro who’s seen things. Instead, he ends up being:
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A walking exposition dump
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Weirdly judgy for a guy with a massive secret
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Shockingly bad at “not getting killed by possessed inmates”
While they’re holed up in a room, trying not to die, Lewis starts interrogating Peter about his “ineffective prayers,” because nothing says “teamwork in a demon crisis” like mid-battle spiritual performance reviews.
Peter finally confesses:
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He slept with Magali while she was possessed
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Esperanza is the product of that encounter
Lewis, like any reasonable man of the cloth, responds with:
“Oh, that’s bad. Anyway, I once made a deal with the demon Balban instead of beating it, so I actually brought this whole thing on myself too.”
Sir.
So both priests are walking red flags:
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Peter is demon-baby dad
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Lewis is demon’s former business partner
At this point, you’re less watching a battle of good versus evil and more watching evil versus guys who failed the “Do not negotiate with Satan” module in seminary.
Possession, But Make It Group Chat
One of the film’s big swings is having multiple inmates possessed at once, turning the prison into hell’s worst group therapy session. The inmates:
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Snarl
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Leap
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Give Balban a small army of meat-puppets to throw at the priests
In theory, this raises the stakes. In practice, it mostly raises body count and adds more shrieking. The movie never really explores what possession means for these people as individuals; they’re just angry demon props who occasionally get names before they become claw delivery systems.
Lewis eventually gets fatally stabbed by one of them, but not before squeezing in the very helpful advice: “Never make a deal with Balban.”
Thanks, Father. Might’ve been handy, say, before you revealed you made a demon deal and helped set all of this in motion, but sure.
Catholic Guilt: The Movie
With Lewis dead and the prison a supernatural dumpster fire, Peter decides it’s time to do the most modern thing imaginable:
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He records a video confession and sends it to the Church
Honestly, the idea of a priest making a YouTube-ready “Hey guys, so I have some sins to own up to…” is unintentionally hilarious. It’s framed as an act of courage and contrition; it mostly feels like a celestial PR move.
But the demon doesn’t care about his upload schedule, so Peter is promptly knocked out and wakes up strapped down, surrounded by possessed inmates and Esperanza, now fully Balban’d.
Balban’s whole vibe here is:
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Torture-sadist showman
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Enjoys setting up moral saw-traps
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Has real “worst HR manager in Hell” energy
He forces Peter into a choice:
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Save the children
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Save his daughter
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Or keep his connection to God
This should be an absolutely gutting scene. A brutal, emotional climax where faith, love, and guilt collide. Instead, it’s so melodramatic and on-the-nose that you can practically see the writer rubbing their hands, whispering, “This is gonna be deep.”
The Big Twist: “What If We Just… Let Evil Win?”
Peter’s ultimate decision?
He chooses to renounce his faith to save others, effectively cutting himself off from God and letting Balban possess him.
So now we’ve got:
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A fully demon-possessed priest
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Smug-evil grin
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Zero idea what happened to the children or the town in any detail
The movie ends with Father Peter as Hell’s most conflicted employee, Balban comfortably inside his body, and the world… maybe doomed? Maybe not? The film shrugs, rolls credits, and leaves you with the distinctly unsatisfying sense of, “Wait, that’s it?”
It’s like sitting through a two-hour sermon just to have the priest say, “Anyway, Satan wins, peace out.”
The Good, the Bad, and the Holy Ridiculous
To be fair, the film isn’t a total disaster. There are things it does decently:
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Some of the possession imagery is genuinely creepy
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María Gabriela de Faría, as Esperanza, throws herself into the demonic side of things with admirable commitment (and spit)
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The core idea—what if a priest’s greatest exorcism failure is also his deepest personal sin—is actually interesting
But the execution is:
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Overwrought
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Obvious
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Obsessed with Catholic guilt to the point of self-parody
The movie keeps shouting THEMES at you—sin, penance, sacrifice, the weight of spiritual failure—while never trusting the audience to feel anything without a demonic light show and a tearful monologue spelled out in capital letters.
Final Verdict: Less “The Exorcist,” More “The Exorcist’s Dramatic Cousin”
The Exorcism of God wants so badly to be profound that it forgets to be smart. Or scary. Or even coherent, beyond “what if demons but extra?”
If you enjoy:
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Priests making the worst choices imaginable
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Demons who talk like they took a Scriptwriting 101 class
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Guilt weaponized as a jump scare
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Exorcism movies turned up to tacky, sweaty melodrama
…then this is a fascinating little trainwreck.
For everyone else, it’s a decent reminder that sometimes, the most horrifying thing in a possession movie isn’t the demon.
It’s the screenplay.
