PREY FOR THE DEVIL (2022)

Studio:     Lionsgate
Director:    Daniel Stamm
Writer:     Robert Zappia, Earl Richey Jones, Todd R. Jones
Producer:  Paul Brooks, Todd R. Jones, Earl Richey Jones, Jessica Malanaphy
Stars:     Jacqueline Byers, Colin Salmon, Christian Navarro, Lisa Palfrey, Nicholas Ralph, Posy Taylor, Ben Cross, Virginia Madsen

Review Score:

Summary:

Working as a new nurse at an exorcism school, a nun with a tragic past becomes hauntingly connected to a young girl possessed by a demon.

Synopsis:     

Review:

The reason why studios produce redundant horror movies so often isn’t because audiences demand them.  It’s because clueless suits, who regard the genre cursorily at best and contemptibly at worst, understand them.  Let’s use “Prey for the Devil,” a formulaic flop that puts the “O” in “boring” by ensuring uncontrollable yawns spend 90 minutes making that shape, as a remedial case study to illustrate.

The film’s first few minutes introduce Sister Ann.  To viewers, she’s a bland – pardon me, “blonde” – young nun whose entire personal history consists of only two defining events: a schizophrenic mother’s suicide that Ann predictably blames herself for, and another unresolved trauma to be revealed later, also quite predictably.  To executives, she’s attractive not for her looks, which are as vanilla as her plain personality, but because someone so indistinguishable can be easily cast with any number of affordable actors.

Ann works as a nurse at a Boston school that trains Catholic priests in how to conduct exorcisms, an educational purpose whose imaginary existence rivals only Bullwinkle J. Moose’s Whatsamatta U for laughability.  In these hilariously hallowed halls, Ann befriends Natalie, a young girl under observation for possible possession, by sneaking her one piece of chalky candy, commiserating over a staff psychiatrist’s sternness, and then giggling together after complimenting the girl’s crayon artwork.  From this simple sequence, viewers get all that the first act is ever going to give to establish their lightning-fast link.  Meanwhile, the people who put up the money perk up at a routine meet-cute that’s “good enough” to get a pat plot off the ground.

Since “Prey for the Devil” rips off – sorry, “follows in the footsteps of” – a bazillion other demonic possession movies whose only standouts can be counted on two fingers, I’m not sure how much of that plot really needs to be recapped.  Maternal bond forms between older woman and younger girl.  Patriarchal power structure pushes back against this woman’s instincts and aspirations on the basis of antiquated gender constructs.  Woman goes outside the system to achieve desired results.  Her actions backfire, but she nevertheless becomes the sole person who can save the supernatural situation when Natalie’s concerning case goes from very bad to much, much worse.

For someone watching at home, this is a typically tepid tale of girl meets demon, wannabe-savior-haunted-by-her-own-troubled-past meets demonic girl, then a TV remote eagerly meets the Off button well before end credits can euthanize the anemic experience first.  For someone anxious to exit a Hollywood office to make a 10am tee time, disinterested ears merely associate comparisons to “The Exorcist” with a mega-hit that made massive money, and that’s probably all “Prey for the Devil” needed to get a green light.

Not to make this an “us versus them” scenario, even though it kind of is and I kind of am, but when seasoned horror fans witness flickering lights, haunting hallucinations that abruptly jump cut back to reality, and creepy contortionists literally bending over backwards, we only see stale scares that couldn’t spook anyone who’s ever watched just one minute of a James Wan film before.  Those on the “them” side, however, see standard scenes that don’t need to be explained to half-engaged heads that couldn’t care less about creating a truly compelling creepshow anyway.

You see, criminally short cameos by Ben Cross and Virginia Madsen may be throwaway roles of inconsequential inclusion for us, yet their recognizable names speak to a movie’s marketers in dollar signs, a language they can more clearly comprehend.  Likewise, a telegraphed twist may result in moans from everyone who saw it coming from a mile away, roughly equal to the distance everyone should put between themselves and this movie, except it almost certainly seems clever to someone who only skims a script.

In other words, what’s “been there, bored by that” for us is “if we’ve been there before, let’s go there again” for them.  That’s why the mold keeps cutting out clichéd cookies like “Prey for the Devil” while disappointed mouths simply spit them back out.  That’s also why it’s easy to see how “Prey for the Devil” could get a thumbs up from anyone only interested in getting a pedestrian project off their desk and onto the assembly line.  They don’t want to devote any more attention to it than absolutely necessary.  Neither do I.  Neither should you.

Review Score: 30