Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		1.5

The Vatican Tapes Blu-ray Movie Review

Exorcise regimen.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 19, 2015

It may serve as a sign (apocalyptic or otherwise) that The Vatican Tapes started life as a “found footage” film, only to be recalibrated (so to speak) once a studio actually greenlit the original concept and then it, along with the creative team, decided to take a supposedly more purely narrative approach. The irony here is that The Vatican Tapes might have been better served by a faux verité technique, for both its opening montage of footage supposedly culled from its titular archive, as well as several interstitial cutaways that dot the premises during the film, many supposedly sourced from entities like security cameras, provide some of the more unsettling footage this derivative effort offers. As is discussed in some the supplements included on this Blu-ray (supplements which some cynics may find more involving than the actual film, it might be added), several members of the creative team either are or at least were devout Catholics, and there was a deliberate attempt to create a wealth of religious iconography throughout the film. There is some interesting subtext in The Vatican Tapes, mostly to do with the perhaps misunderstood difference between the Antichrist and that big old nasty guy Satan himself, but so much of The Vatican Tapes plays like a bus and truck version of The Exorcist that it’s all for naught.

The Vatican Tapes’ stylistic ambiguity is evident from virtually the first moment the supposed “narrative” section kicks in, shortly after a montage of footage which supposedly details the long history of a “secret” Vatican archive devoted to documenting the equally long history of possessions and exorcisms which have been performed under the auspices of the Catholic Church. That montage also introduces a faux CNN-esque interview with Vicar Imani (Djimon Honsou), who is also seen relatively soon thereafter in a non “found footage” snippet where he and Cardinal Bruun (Peter Andersson) are seen in a sanctuary lamenting the uptick in Dark Forces (capital D and F, if you please). But even this mishmash is relatively organic feeling compared to the introduction of Angela Holmes (Olivia Taylor Dudley), who is seen at a birthday party courtesy of both traditional narrative filming as well as brief interstitials supposedly culled from the iPhone video of her boyfriend Pete Smith (John Patrick Amedori). Already, the screenplay (originally by Christopher Borrelli, who also co-wrote the original story, and then reworked by Michael C. Martin) is breaking its own self-created rules, whereby the found footage is supposedly coming from, well, the Vatican Tapes. How did the Vatican get hold of Pete’s phone video, and what point does the early footage have to do with Angela’s subsequent possession? These are mysteries perhaps only a religious scholar is qualified to answer.

The birthday party does at least offer a person to person reunion between Angela and her father Roger (Dougray Holmes), another character whose introduction rather clunkily transitions between quasi-found footage elements and a more traditional narrative “third person” expository approach. The celebration is relatively short lived, however, when a seemingly minor injury to Angela starts to portend Dark Forces (yep, those pesky capitals again) at work. That sets the film off on its increasingly unlikely way, wherein Angela’s possession ultimately involves the Vatican, including the participation of another priest, Father Oscar Lozano (Michael Peña), and which also seems to be Apocalyptic in nature (as in good old Book of Revelation Apocalyptic).

Director Mark Neveldine is probably best known as part of the filmmaking duo Neveldine/Taylor (Neveldine in fact keeps repeating that he “requires” some kind of Taylor on all of his films as a good luck charm—he might want to revisit that thought, considering how The Vatican Tapes turned out). Neveldine/Taylor is (are?) probably best known for their high octane action adventure films like Crank, Crank 2: High Voltage and Gamer, but even Neveldine himself admits that there’s a fundamental difference to “chasing Statham down a street” with a Steadicam and trying to build a supposedly more intellectually arresting enterprise out of a story which depends on a fair amount of religious iconography. Neveldine, who is seen in some of the supplements on this Blu-ray zinging around the set on roller blades and who is also described as having ADD by one of the producers (in an apparent half-joke), nonetheless fails to invest The Vatican Tapes with much energy, and in fact the big set pieces, including the climactic exorcism, are often unintentionally funny, with Dudley seeming to be close to Linda Blair head spinning and green pea soup expectorating territory, while Peter Andersson spews out a bunch of heavily accented religious hoo-hah (a technical term), in a kind of B movie approximation of Max Von Sydow.

The film’s one kind of interesting element comes at the tail end, in a conceit that obviously is pointing the way to a sequel. Angela’s exorcism hasn’t quite gone the way everyone is obviously thinking it has, and the young woman, who is now supposedly graced with supernatural healing powers, is poised to become a media sensation. It’s an interesting concept, though anyone with a long memory for other demonically infused offerings may recall that one Ira Levin crafted a very similar set up in his follow up to his epochal Rosemary's Baby, Son of Rosemary.

The Vatican Tapes Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Vatican Tapes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Various sections of this Red shot production have been pretty aggressive tweaked in post, with many sequences artificially jiggered to resemble pretty lo-fi elements like television broadcasts or closed circuit displays of security camera footage. As such, large swaths of the film never really pop with much immediacy. Even some of the relatively normal narrative sequences take place in dimly lit environments where detail can be mitigated by lighting schemes and the jiggly cam approach that tends to give at least the perception of softness. When the camera is stationary and lighting is at least at reasonable levels, detail and fine detail are quite good, even excellent (see screenshot 1). While some environments have been fairly heavily color graded (notably some of the institutional interiors like a hospital and a psychiatric ward), overall the palette is actually very natural looking, with nicely modulated flesh tones and some appealing luster when things venture out of doors.

The Vatican Tapes Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Vatican Tapes employs a lot of pretty hoary sonic tropes which are delivered with excellent fidelity and wide dynamic range over this Blu-ray disc's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. Rumbly, tumbly LFE spills through the surrounds at various times to create a (supposedly) subliminal feeling of angst, and when Angela starts showing disturbing signs of aggression and possession, the track provides a lot of force if not a ton of nuance as various participants shout back and forth in a panicked manner. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly and is well prioritized.

The Vatican Tapes Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentary with Director Mark Neveldine, Cinematographer Gerardo Mateo Madrazo and Actress Olivia Taylor Dudley is a reasonably engaging affair, with some of the most interesting information passed between Neveldine and Madrazo (whose English is a bit halting but never overly problematic to understand).


• Tale of the Tapes (1080p; 29:19) is a fairly in depth featurette which offers quite a few interviews and lots of behind the scenes footage.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 13:24)


• Extended Scenes (1080p; 14:38). One of these contains a superimposed "bug" crediting Lakeshore Entertainment, as well as a timecode caption. Does someone really think there are thieves out there jonesin' for extended scenes from The Vatican Tapes?

The Vatican Tapes Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

It's getting close to Halloween 2015 as this review is published, which means that lots of viewers will be looking for a good old fashioned demonic possession story. The Vatican Tapes fulfills the old fashioned and demonic possession sides of that equation, but those looking for something actually good had best keep looking. There's a little film called The Exorcist that might fill the bill completely, however. The Vatican Tapes simply never seems to know whether it wants to exploit its found footage element totally or not, something that leaves the film in a kind of stylistic purgatory that never makes a lot of sense and which seems almost cavalier in its approach a lot of the time. (On a tangential note, might I ask why so many of the Vatican Tapes seem to show possessed people forced to dance the limbo?) Technical merits on this Blu-ray release are generally very good for those who are considering a purchase.