THE SEVENTH DAY | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Justin P. Lange (15, 87 mins)
A formulaic supernatural thriller that solidly goes through the motions but creates few scares. Guy Pearce stars as a disenchanted rogue exorcist, Father Peter, who witnessed a terrible demonic possession early on in the priesthood that robbed him of his mentor and ended in tragedy. Now he doesn’t wear his dog collar, but his reputation for evil spirit buttkicking goes before him. He’s paired with rookie priest Father Daniel (Vadhir Derbez), and together they go looking for evil to combat, like a supernatural Training Day.
They find the devil under a motorway overpass and are eventually led to a house where a young boy, played by Brady Jeness, has apparently murdered his entire family. Father Daniel opens himself up to the horrors within, pointing to a possession of the boy, and soon they are trying to cast out evil in true Exorcist style. Pearce is engagingly louche and laidback as the tortured priest doing an exorcist Dirty Harry, forcing demons out with forceful speeches, whilst the naïve Father Daniel looks on.
Gradually, however, the film succumbs to cliché: children are tied to beds, rise up in the air and take bloody action, with slowed-down demon voices and flying crucifixes par for the course. Writer/director Lange does add some visual flair in predictably deserted corridor scenes, lights flickering on and off with shuddering strobe intensity, and there are attempts at jump scares, but the film doesn’t really build an effective sense of dread, playing more like an action movie as nice ladies eat glass and kids get rictus Joker grins. There are some intriguing forays into clerical politics but they are shortlived, whilst plot twists and turns remain fairly obvious. A time-passer – not diabolical, but The Seventh Day will leave little impact on your soul.
Out now via VOD
words KEIRON SELF