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What it's about:
The Vatican Tapes follows the ultimate battle between good and evil—God versus Satan. Angela Holmes (Dudley) is an ordinary 27-year-old until she begins to have a devastating effect on anyone close, causing serious injury and death. Holmes is examined and possession is suspected, but when the Vatican is called upon to exorcise the demon, the possession proves to be an ancient satanic force more powerful than ever imagined. It's all up to Father Lozano (Peña) to wage war for more than just Angela's soul, but for the world as we know it.
What we thought:
Good versus evil. God versus Satan. Sounds famliar? Well, everything about this film is familiar, because everything in it has been done before. For those who are wondering, The Vatican Tapes does not take on the form of a found-footage movie, thank goodness! It does however feature some security-cam footage.
The movie starts off showing a montage of exorcism footage being investigated by Vatican priests, one of them being Djimon Hounsou. The footage shows incidents of demonic possession, and this is where we meet Angela, played by Olivia Taylor Dudley, for the first time.
Angela is a normal happy 27-year-old with a loving father and a caring, live-in boyfriend. Her father surprises her on her brithday and while cutting her birthday cake, she accidentally cuts her finger. This is where it all starts to go wrong. After a quick trip to the hospital to get stitches, Angela is attacked by a raven while on her way home on the bus. The raven bursts through the bus window and causes further damage to her finger. When she gets home, Angela starts to get sick and on her way back to the hospital she causes the taxi they are driving in to crash. She ends up in a months-long coma and just after they switch off her life support, she miraculously comes back to life. Cue trouble...
From this point onwards, Angela becomes worse and worse as she tries to drown a baby and make people kill themselves. This attracts the attention of a priest, Father Lozano, played by Michael Pena. After a hospital and a mental institution couldn't figure out what's wrong with Angela, Father Lozano suggests an exorcism with the help of the Vatican cardinal, who has some experience in exorcism as he was possessed as a young boy.
If you do like a good horror, then this will probably be very disappointing. With no real scary bits, except maybe for the intensity with which Dudley portrays her character (all those demomic stares), the movie truly is a snooze fest. It ends with a twist however which does make up for some of the boring bits leading up to it.
