Julius Avery, The Pope Exorcist Director Comments About the Movie

Before we start, we give you a spoiler alert. If you haven’t seen the movie, we will discuss the comments of Julius Avery, The Pope Exorcist director. 

One of the most anticipated movies is undoubtedly The Pope Exorcist. Critics and users of horror and suspense movies stated that the latest ones left much to be desired. The few movies that stand out in horror are related to this theme, such as The Conjuring or The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Even though he is not a fan of this kind of movie, Julius Avery decided to accept the direction of this production. He commented in an interview on some aspects of this filming and even about the participation of the main character, Russell Crowe, and how the actor positively impacted the story’s development.  

Julius Avery, The Pope Exorcist Director, Talks About the Movie

Image: Sony Pictures

The Pope Exorcist director Julius Avery commented on the film in an interview with Variety. The filmmaker confessed that exorcism movies are not exactly his cup of tea. In fact, he added that he barely saw parts of the original Exorcist movie. 

The director emphasized that despite that, he decided to participate in the film based on Gabriele Amorth’s books, An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories. In this narrative, they show Father Amorth, who Russell Crowe portrays. This character is the Vatican’s chief exorcist, who goes to Spain to help a colleague named Father Esquibel, played by Daniel Zovatto.

In this plot, both fathers will investigate strange events around a young mother named Julia and her children, who show signs of possessing a powerful demon.

About the character of Father Julius Avery, The Pope Exorcist director, stated the following: “I found it interesting that this was a real job, that there is a chief exorcist at the Vatican. I’m not sure how much I believe in all of this. I find it fascinating that science can only explain 98% of the stuff out there. There is 2% that we can not explain, and only 2% of possession cases are real. Even if it were 0.001%, that would terrify me”.

The Director Talks about Russell Crowe’s Involvement in the Movie

Image: Sony Pictures

For Julius Avery, The Pope Exorcist’s director, acting out this whole story was quite a fun challenge, considering he was out of his comfort zone. The icing on the cake for the filmmaker was undoubtedly the addition of actor Russell Crowe as the lead in this film. 

Avery commented on Crowe’s impact on the filming: “Russell has this raw magnetism that really draws you in. So, even though we’re throwing all these fantastical elements at the character, he brings a real sense of believability to that world we’ve created. 

In his representation of Father Amorth, Crowe has to fight with the demon tormenting the young Julia. The investigations lead him to the abbey of the monastery where they are. After that, he discovers that there were the fallen angels imprisoned to prevent them from resurfacing. However, these were slowly approaching the surface. One of the buried evil spirits was special.

In concluding the interview Julius Avery, The Pope Exorcist director, stated about the battle between Crowe’s character and the demon: “It felt like there could be this epic battle between good and evil. In the final battle, you’ve got Russell, the guy who played Gladiator, taking on the King of Hell, the Devil, in this cool setting”.

Featured Image Via Sony Pictures