Anthony Hopkins Film "The Rite": It's A Baal Of Laughs

Cafe Society
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As a long-lapsed, ex-Roman Catholic, I had forgotten how weird this religion is until I went to see The Rite yesterday.
The films deals with exorcism - which seems to be a solely Catholic infliction. I mean, has anyone ever heard of a Jewish exorcist, or Baptist exorcist, or an exorcist in the Muslim, Buddhist or Lutheran religions? Even Scientology isn’t this batshit crazy.
Maybe it is the Catholic guilt that causes people to be possessed/inhabited by any one of the more popular devils/satan figures, and suddenly scream profanities (in multiple languages), all the while turning your eyes red (or all white), and spewing vomit, nails, pen knives and Gummi Bears.
Whatever it is, glad I am an ex-Catholic; the last thing I need is for Anthony Hopkins to be leaning over me with his stare, screaming Latin prayers in my face.

Supposedly this story is based upon true events (uh, sure…) and therefore, to be taken seriously. I mean, the Vatican really does have a team of exorcists on call. According to the film, there is an exorcist in every Dioceses. Wow - I am just envisioning the face of the woman behind the counter at unemployment when she reads your resume; “Unemployed Exorcist”.

The film follows the story of a guy who wants to get a college education, but doesn’t have the money. He goes to a nice university for priests, fully intending (and planning) to bale on the idea of becoming a priest after graduation. Then he discovers if he does that, he might be liable for over $100,000 in student loans if he doesn’t follow through to become a priest. How’s that for a resounding reason to enter the priesthood?

In an attempt to entice him to follow through, and due to his good grades in psychology, they send him to Rome and he gets a crash course in exorcism. He even gets a mentor (Anthony Hopkins) and off we go on a tour of the wackiest, demon-possessed individuals in the area.

The story takes a “twist” - which, considering the theme of the story, that is no easy feat - and we have a very dramatic turn of events in the last 1/3 of the film.

This is resolved, and the story wraps up nicely with a few notations at the end about the “real” priests upon which this story was based.

So, I suppose if you buy into the concept of evil, Satanic possession, and the healing effects of dedicated, devout Roman Catholic priests, and can watch this with a straight face - you will love this film.

Nice scenery. Pretty sets. Oh, and they even have a female lead, but no - there is no romantic subplot; that would be just too weird.

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How do I put it? Even when they’re being, um… “subtle”, Hollywood excorcism is way over the top.

All of the above have existed, just not so formally. Orthodox definitely do, and many other religions around the world have excorcisms.

let us simply say that real Excorcisms are rather more… sedate. And the depiction of excorcisms, again, is utterly untrue.

Hollywood, again.

Same.

Honestly, I can see why you lapsed. You seem to have bought into a number of fiction tropes and confused that with the religion.

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Exorcisms have been around longer than Catholicism. They just didn’t use Latin; that was new then.

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Hmmm. Well, the central tenet in Scientology is that your inner Thetan is possessed with Engrams which need to be purged with help from the members of the church. So, basically, Scientology says that everybody needs an exorcism. I haven’t seen the film, but did Anthony Hopkins hook anybody up to an e-meter?

Trust me, ain’t nothing more batshit crazy that Scientology.

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Check out fake documentary The Last Exoricist for a take on how the Protestant Fundamentalists do exoricism. I

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I saw the film yesterday and I greatly enjoyed it.

One thing I didn’t like, and this film isn’t he only one that does it, is their take on the skeptic.

I’m a confirmed Catholic but I have no issues with someone not believing some of the stuff, especially in regards to exorcism, but really, you have someone vomiting up nails, speaking flawless English and telling you things that NO ONE in the entire world would know. And you’re still saying, “Oh, she’s faking”? I understand disregarding the dollar trick, but c’mon.

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Hollywood’s “based on true events” basically means “there really are Catholics … in fact Ricardo Montalban was one!”

Bill Maher did a NEW RULE about Anthony Hopkins in horror movies the other night, something like “It’s hard to be afraid of someone who you can get away from by taking two steps at a time”. I assumed Hopkins was the exorcist, but is he in fact the bad guy?

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Major Spoilers!

Not the bad guy, per se. Hopkins just gets possessed in the last third of the movie

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Sorry to hijack the thread, but how would that work exactly? How long would he have to be a priest to not be liable any more? Priesthood is a lifelong thing, can a contract that binds you to a certain career for the rest of your life be lawful? If I were the guy, I would just quit the moment I’m no longer liable.[sup]*[/sup]

[sup]*[/sup]Provided I avoid the faith reaffirming battle with Satan.