Prey For The Devil: All Show, No susbtance
Set in the Catholic Churchs Training Center, “Prey to the Devil” takes an interesting track, putting the church in the role of a government body; a body that is charged with stopping dangerous threats. Following the worldwide increase of demonic possession, Prey for the Devil begins with the Catholic Church opening up its Exorcism School in order to train priests on the Exorcism Rite.
Prey for the Devil attempts to retell that tired tale through the device of a would-be female exorcist, but it never manages to cobble together a cohesive or frightening narrative that rises above a patchwork of familiar possession horror tropes. It gambles so much of the narrative on the gimmick that Sister Anne (Jacqueline Byers) is the first female exorcist that it does not take enough time to build up the further story.
Review
Prey For The Devil is a movie that has a lack of purpose in its filming. The reviews of this latest horror seem quite low around the internet; 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, 2/5 on The A.V. Club & 5.1/10 on IMDb as per the first google search.
The story seems to have a good theme in the background but none of it combines into an understandable plotline due to poor editing and storylines. A single woman coping in the midst of an exorcism school of men is quite a mark and on the second hand, the film also copes with sensitive things like rape, teenage pregnancy, and many more which could have been used in a more effective manner making it feel like actually involved with the theme of the movie but rather where felt completely out of place.
It has a PG-13 rating, which is sure to make several younger people watch this as their first scary movie when the Halloween season is quite the turn.
According to AV CLUB, there seems to be a good movie somewhere in this patchwork but instead, the strain is too much for the flesh to bear.
The Prey for the Devil was released on 28 October 2022 starring Christian Navarro, Jacqueline Byers, Nicholas Ralph, Virginia Madsen, Posy Taylor, and Colin Salmon.