Much of the film feels like Neveldine creating random scenes that reach for effect without any rationale as to why they would be happening – birds randomly attack a bus after walking into Olivia Taylor Dudley’s hospital room, a cop (Jarvis George) gouges his eyes out with broken bottles she walks into the paediatric ward and menacingly picks up a baby she causes all of the patients in the psychiatric ward to go crazy in a frenzied mass an orderly is killed by falling masonry. (l to r) Priests Peter Andersson and Michael Peña attempt to exorcise Olivia Taylor Dudley Or at least, as with a number of other films of recent, we at least seem to be heading towards the post-Found Footage film where the stylistic tricks of Found Footage are now integrated with regular third-person dramatic set-ups. For a time, it almost seems that what we are getting is another cliche treatment of recent years – the Found Footage exorcism film and, although some of what we see is relayed by handicam and cctv footage, this is not the case. Even when he is not, the score is obtrusively nudging us towards effect where even something everyday like Olivia Taylor Dudley drinking a bottle of water is made to seem sinister. Neveldine is constantly repeating hoary cliches. The Vatican Tapes is a perfect example of this. In another cliche, the Catholics always seem to be the front line of defence when it comes to demonic battles – the opening credits here even announce that “For two thousand years now, The Vatican has investigated occurrences of unexplained evil” – a somewhat broad and unjustified claim where we are not sure whether the film refers to The Vatican as Catholic authority or the buildings in Rome, neither of which were in existence 2000 years ago.
Instead, what we end up with are a limited number of stale ideas that are being repeated from film to film. Not that one believes in the actuality of demonic possession but if just one of the filmmakers sat down with some of the people who claim to be exorcists in real life or visited some of the churches beyond the Catholics, we would have some very different ideas and approaches into the mix. In all of these cases, it feels like each entrant is cycling around a small number of cliches that are repeated from film to film. A possessed Olivia Taylor Dudley levitates in a burning house in the thoroughly overwrought exorcism scenes The possession and exorcism film has made a more than reasonable return since the mid-00s with films such as The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), Blackwater Valley Exorcism (2006), Exorcism: The Possession of Gal Bowers (2006), Chronicles of an Exorcism (2008), The Last Exorcism (2010), Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes (2011), Back from Hell (2011), The Rite (2011), The Devil Inside (2012), The Conjuring (2013), Deliver Us From Evil (2014), The Atticus Institute (2015), Backmask/The Asylum/Exeter (2015), Incarnate (2016) and The Crucifixion (2017), among others.
THE VATICAN TAPES PLOT SERIES
On his own, Mark Neveldine has also produced Officer Downe (2016) and Urge (2016), while Taylor went on to make the mass insanity film Mom & Dad (2017) and create the splendidly deranged tv series Happy! (2017-9) and the Dystopian future mini-series Brave New World (2020). I can’t say I have ever had much liking for Neveldine/Taylor’s films, which seem to be all frenetically paced action sequences filled with constant shakycam as though directed by two speed freaks.
They also wrote the scripts for Pathology (2008) and Jonah Hex (2010). Along with his partner Brian Taylor, Neveldine first co-directed the hyper-adrenalised action hit Crank (2006) and its sequel Crank: High Voltage (2009), as well as the sf film Gamer (2009) and the Marvel Comics adaptation Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance (2012). The Vatican Tapes was the first solo film from Mark Neveldine, who was previously one half of the directing duo who billed themselves variously as Neveldine & Taylor or Neveldine/Taylor.