Candace is possessed by a demon, and her family has tried everything to save her. Could her last hope be a priest with his own dark secrets?

“Death grants no escape” in a movie about possession like Exorcism of the Dead, written and directed by John Migliore (Poltergeist Encounters, Creature from Cannibal Creek). There was indeed screaming in this film from the possessed girl, however, I too found myself possessed enough to take to screaming as well…out of frustration with this film rather than out of being horrified. This 2017 movie is an occult feature with a story along the lines of the one that started it all, William Friedkin’s The Exorcist (1973), so without re-inventing the wheel or doing a different kind of possession movie, Exorcism of the Dead‘s silly musical and intrusive score, forced dialogue, and stiff acting made this one a hard sell.

The story goes like this: A young woman, named Candace (Sarah Swerid), has been sick for a long time, displaying inhuman strength and fits of rage at a moment’s notice. After her loving and stressed out mother, Eunice (Deborah Jane Reilly Smith), consulted everyone from psychiatrists to social workers, she realizes that Candace is beyond their help, and what’s more, is no longer the daughter… or possibly even alive. As a last resort, she turns to the church to answer her prayers, penning a letter to the diocese to send help.  

So, along comes Father Abuna (Nick Biskupek), 2 months later, and Candace has only gotten worse in their delay. Eunice’s brother, Phillip (Rich Piatkowski), has since come to aid with the sordid ordeal, and after explaining to the family that the church has been investigating Candace’s case beforehand Father Abuna is allowed to begin the process of exorcising whatever has a hold on Candace. Though it seems that the body of Candace is already dead, Father Abuna maintains he can still remove the offending demon, which has possessed the cadaver of the poor young woman. Finding that the demon is Ethiopian in origin, named Ekko Abiku, the father, the uncle, and the unholy spirit battle it out for the soul and body of Candace.

I don’t think there was much I enjoyed about Exorcism of the Dead — there were some nice shots here and there, thanks to DP Darren Hutchings, but the majority of the movie seemed like a 90’s made for TV movie shot on home video. Sometime within the first 10 minutes, there was a shot that threw off the flow of setting up the film; this segment was the most horrifying part of the movie, as well as other short segments later on that seemed shoehorned in order to add background to the misdeeds of the demon Ekko Abiku. These segments outside of the main narrative had much better acting, dialogue, storylines, shots — they seemed as though they were done by a completely different director and were the film’s saving grace, breathing life and interest into an otherwise monotoned exorcism narrative.

Furthermore, I had some major issues with the dialogue. The conversations often felt stiff and artificial as their lines were run on top of each other without any natural pacing or pause for thought. The dialogue itself included things like “I don’t know. Girls are weird” and “I got it off the internet” in reference to the exorcism instructions, so in its attempts to be humorous it came off as lazy writing. Nick Biskupek did bring some vigor to the movie towards the end in his role as the priest, though I wish the characters were not so surface and flat, they seemed like pawns instead of true players in a film. 

Exorcism of the Dead had its good points, but I would say that they are overshadowed by its rampant cringe factors. I felt Magliore was trying to get to a down and dirty place with this film, but within the limitation of it being a low-budget horror film (an estimated 5k CAD), it did not quite make it there. I did like the short segments and the theme song for the credits, done by Mike Trebilcock, who according to the credits did all of the music for this film. Exorcism of the Dead was released in Canada back in 2017 at the Hamilton Film Festival but has recently been made available on DVD through Wild Eye Releasing as of this past May. If you do watch this movie, be sure to rock out to theme song through the credits to catch a little 30-second bonus spot at the end, Marvel style, though good thing it does not necessarily allude to any follow up films to this lackluster attempt at an exorcist flick.