![]() ![]() So… why even include that subplot at all, if it’s in no way whatsoever thematically connected to the end result? If the camera doesn’t in some way play a role in the exorcism - as it does in better found-footage possession films like The Taking of Deborah Logan and genre standout The Last Exorcism - then why bother? “Why are you putting that up there?” asks Pete, Angela’s boyfriend who mostly exists to stand around silently and look concerned.īruun replies gruffly, “So it doesn’t get in the way.”Īha! Something to think about! The filmmakers are well aware that it would make no sense for the priest performing the exorcism to be actively filming at the same time, so he’s tying the camera off so it doesn’t get in the way of his exorcism but also so the found-footage conceit doesn’t get in the way of us watching the exorcism!Īnd then during the ensuing chaos, there are about three total cuts to the footage from the camera, and they’re all about a second long, and then that’s that. Fresh off a plane from Vatican City, helping out with the exorcism mostly so he can make another video to add to the Vatican’s collection of tapes, Cardinal Bruun (Peter Andersson) secures a camera to one of the wooden posts in Angela’s bedroom. The only moment where The Vatican Tapes has anything resembling genre commentary takes place toward the end of the film, just before the inevitable exorcism scene. I’m a big fan of the found-footage genre when there’s anything remotely interesting happening at all on a metatextual level. Pop quiz time! Is Angela - A) screaming or B) yawning? Do we really need to jump between “found” footage of Angela Facetiming her father, and a shot from the other side of the room where we can see her on her computer, half hidden behind an indistinguishable, fuzzy object in the foreground? It’s jarring, confusing, and annoying instead of being the faintest bit intellectually engaging. However, unlike subgenre highlight Chronicle or even the underrated Into the Storm, both of which had some intentionality behind how and when they broke from found-footage convention at key moments - actually commenting on the genre - The Vatican Tapes seems completely random in how, why, and when it edits in some in-world film clips. We do watch some of the creepier moments through a security cam quad-view, but when it suits the movie to cut to a closeup not motivated by an in-world camera, it does so. But that’s not all we see the film is more than just an assemblage of this footage. The plot somewhat loosely revolves around cardinals at the Vatican keeping a secret trove of tapes related to demonic possession, and when they catch wind of Angela’s case, they request to have all available security camera footage of her sent to them so they can review it. Instead of an actual found-footage horror movie, what we have here is something different, but sort of related. Those two examples, by the way, are in my opinion among the worst found-footage offerings in existence. Would that it were! The amateur camera-wielding characters of films like The Gallows and The Possession of Michael King have more of a sense of where to place their cameras than do the professional filmmakers who made The Vatican Tapes. When it was originally a script on the Black List in 2009, The Vatican Tapes was intended to be structured like a found-footage film. What is she thinking during this pivotal moment? ~The world will never know!~ It’s a shot that took more than ten seconds to set up, proof that there was someone behind the camera who did something other than toss a camera blindly into a room and say, “Okay, let’s shoot the scene from there.”Īnd then, just as quickly as it shows up, the shot is over, and we’re back to things framed like this: She’s framed by a pentagon of rafters, and the way she blocks the light from the window silhouettes her in the center of a tumble of triangles and rays that… ever… so… slightly… suggest a radiant halo at first glance, or maybe even a pentagram if you’re reaching. Those subjects, by the way, more often than not, keep getting the tops of their heads chopped off by a frantically shaking camera that can never stay still long enough to show us an actor’s entire face at once, refusing to allow us the opportunity to interpret whatever flickers of emotion the actors may desperately be trying to convey.īut, this particular shot, which comes toward the end of the film, as a possessed Angela leaps into the rafters mid-exorcism, feels comparatively like a breath of fresh air. The rest of the film is completely blown out, light sources completely fuzzing their subjects’ outlines at best, or shining straight into the lens and entirely blinding the audience at worst. ![]()
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