Maybe to someone without my history this was a horror film. A movie full of jumps and scares. An hour and a half of dramatic music, light and dark motifs and the added twist of a deep secret. It was that in a way. But at its heart this was a film about trauma, about guilt and about how often the worst horrors are the ones we inflict on ourselves. Consciously or not. I don’t know which side it was written more for. Maybe it was cleverly trying to appeal to both the traditional horror crowd and those interested in psychology and the brain. It doesn’t really matter. It’s been a long time since I have written a movie review on this blog because I didn’t feel I had anything to offer that you couldn’t just Google and find out for yourself. This isn’t a plot review it is a discussion of power and abuse of power, mental health and more. This film triggered something in me and I have a lot of thoughts.

First of all a trigger warning. If you are going to see this film, or read this blog please be aware of themes of: Self harm, suicide, violence, church abuse, child harm (in the form of demonic possession and exorcism), discussions around abortion and teen pregnancy. Honestly I think it’s shocking that cinemas are not compelled to put a trigger warning on movies. There are definitely films I would not have gone to see had I known what they contained. There is also too much bad film making which uses brief highlight traumatic scenes as ways to make a plot. But that’s a whole other topic. I have also specifically chosen images from the film that are totally not graphic or upsetting. There will also be no detailed descriptions of any of the above names themes in this post.

Back to the movie. I love horror films. I think I always have. In the same way I love adrenaline events like big roller coasters, drop rides, bungee jumping. There is something about feeling that overwhelming wave of adrenaline and fear but also knowing you are completely safe (even if in the moment you can forget that). Then you get that feeling of pride when you complete whatever scary challenge it was. This is not a therapy session for me but I think it has something to do with the fact I have always struggled to manage my own emotions and so I look for them in external forces. Having been through a lot of mental illness treatment I can see that and I get less of an emotional release from scary things and more just the enjoyment.

‘Pray for the Devil’ is in brief a horror movie about exorcisms by the Catholic Church being brought into the C21st century. The Vatican has got outreach centres across the globe and this movie is set in Boston. The ‘hospital’ uses a mixture of modern medicine including psychiatry, psychology, physiology, phlebotomy, neurology and more. Then once patients are cleared of any potential physical cause they are passed to the priests of the church. Now the patients under observation are kept in locked hospital rooms under constant watch with all of their belongings taken away. I would be lying if I said it didn’t remind me massively of life on psych ward.

Something the film did well I thought, and I would have liked to see more of, an acknowledgment of the crimes of the Catholic Church historically. How many innocent people were killed as ‘devils’ when in fact they were just different. Different due to mental or physical illness, their faiths, anything really. Am I getting too controversial when I say the exorcisms of the Catholic Church amounted to torcher? No I don’t think I am. I think one can appreciate that knowledge was different then and people were doing what they believed was right whilst making it clear that such behaviour is absorbent. Particularly when we keep in mind that brutal exorcisms are not a thing of the past. The poor treatment of homosexuals by Christianity is still sadly common place across the globe. I get frustrated by a lot of horror films based around the trope of devil procession and the battles of the holy warrior to try and free them. Because it suggests that this is totally imaginary and made up. This puts a huge disservice to anyone who has suffered at the hands of either the church or other institutions of power. If that is you and you are reading this. Your story is real and true. Don’t let yourself be gaslighted. You deserve truth, justice and peace.

The exorcism plot too often implies that such things only happen in films and we need not really be afraid of demons. I don’t think we need to fear demons but sadly often we need to fear our fellow man. Particularly when there is a huge power imbalance like the ones portrayed in these movies. I am currently doing my masters in social work at university and a huge thing we look at is the huge power imbalance between yourself as the worker and the service user. I have experienced that from the other side as a mental health patient. Even if the care is for the best you are totally disempowered and you feel a loss of yourself. We are raised to value freedom as one of the key components of self and suddenly you don’t have any. Most of my care was very good and I am grateful for it and alive because of it. But there were things that happened that weren’t right and I had no voice to challenge it. Watching ‘Pray for the Devil’ I understood far more than a plot line the main characters push that an exorcism can’t look beyond the person. It has to look into the person. You can’t treat someone without understanding why they are feeling the pain they do.

There was a hugely powerful line in the film that ‘The Devil goes after the most devout because we feel guilt the greatest.’ I fully shed a fear at that point. Because guilt and shame are some of the hardest emotions to feel. It is much easier to be angry. It is easier to be sad. Because those are my feelings. Guilt and shame is predicated on your impact on other people or your life choices and that makes tackling it so much harder. To face things that you feel you have done wrong (whether you have or not) that is so massively hard. PTSD stems from the brain not properly processing trauma correctly and treatment for it often involves getting the patient to speak what has happened to them out loud. To bring it into the open. I won’t say more than that because I am not a trained mental health professional. But the exorcism techniques used in the film are similar to those. Funnily enough the lead character is guided in her work by the lead doctor (who is not religious). She blends together faith and psychology and I thought that was really cool.

So yes I would very much recommend you go and see ‘Pray for the Devil’. If you just want a good old jump scare horror film it delivers that in spades. I definitely covered my eyes with my hands at one point automatically in response to a shock! Even though the creepy music told me it was coming. But if you are interested in psychology, trauma and a film that will pull at your heart strings. Then it’s a good movie too. This isn’t my most structured or thought through blog post. I knew the longer I waited to write it the more I would loose my feelings and I would begin to second guess myself. So I hope this gave you some thinking points and perhaps a different perspective on the horror genre.