Al Pacino & Dan Stevens in Rote Exorcism Flick

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A young priest who’s recently suffered a personal tragedy and is struggling with issues of faith teams up with an older, veteran priest to perform an exorcism on a young girl who’s been exhibiting disturbing signs of demonic possession. The younger priest is skeptical, believing that her manifestations could be the result of psychological disturbance. The older priest is resolute, determined to once more do battle with the Devil.

No, I mean it, stop me.

Because clearly no one has stopped The Ritual, yet another attempt that tries and fails to exorcise our memories of the classic, gold standard of the genre, William Friedkin’s 1973 The Exorcist. As if to compensate for the fact that their film is trafficking in the same sort of hokiness as such recent, similarly themed efforts as The Pope’s Exorcist and The Exorcism (both starring Russell Crowe, weirdly enough), the creators of this B-movie really, really want you to know that their story actually happened.

“The following is based on true events,” we’re informed at the beginning. “The story represents the most thoroughly documented case of demonic possession in American history.”

And just in case you’ve become skeptical after actually sitting through the damn thing, an end-credit crawl states it again. “The 1928 exorcism of Emma Schmidt remains the most thoroughly documented and well-known exorcism in American history,” we’re reminded, as if audiences are suffering from short-term memory loss. And to make sure we believe it, photographs of the real-life priests are shown onscreen. They doth protest too much, methinks.

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In any case, the patina of authenticity does little to enliven the drab, unscary proceedings, set, as in the real-life case, in 1928 Iowa. There, young Emma (Abigail Cowen, admirably game for her role’s demanding physical requirements) is displaying the sort of qualifying behavior for priestly and cinematic intervention. Father Joseph Steiger (Dan Stevens) doesn’t believe that demonic forces are involved. But veteran German priest Father Theophilus Riesinger (Al Pacino), whose name is so perfect it has to be real, knows the Devil when he sees him, and the local bishop (Patrick Fabian, who previously starred in 2010’s The Last Exorcism and should know better by now) rules in favor of an exorcism.

Thus begins a series of a half-dozen attempts in which the two priests try to perform the religious ritual while Emma responds with the best demonic possession effects that a low budget can buy, including levitating, speaking in tongues, regurgitation and, at one point, tearing off a good chunk of scalp from a hapless young nun (Ashley Greene, Twilight) who’s made the mistake of pitching in. Supervising it all is the stern Mother Superior, played by Patricia Heaton of Everybody Loves Raymond fame. Because when you’re going for scares, you really want to cast a sitcom star.

Director-screenwriter Midell (The Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain) attempts to immerse us in the would-be intense proceedings with the sort of extensive use of hand-held cameras and zoom lenses that have become standard for mockumentary comedies. The lighting design, meanwhile, is so dark it looks like the movie theater projector bulbs have burnt out. Midell also resorts to so many reaction shots of a horrified-looking Stevens that it’s hard to tell whether the talented actor is truly in the moment or simply regretting his career choices.

As for Pacino, it’s sadly no surprise to once again see the legendary actor slumming it in a B-movie, for reasons best known to him (and possibly his accountant). Employing the sort of accent that actors of a certain age love to indulge in (see his work in Amazon’s Nazi-hunting series Hunters), he’s actually pretty effective, largely refraining from the over-the-top theatrics that have characterized his work in recent years. Which leads to the inevitable question: Out of everything he’s done lately, he chooses this film to not ham it up?