It's a Character Piece with occasional moments of diabolically shitty schlock theatrics.

And the fella at the bus-stop, all accusatory, "See, that's what your problem is, you can't cope with a flick deals with Big Issues."

And no, sorry baby but fuck you baby, truth is I wanted nothing more in the world than an Exorcist flick that dealt with the Big Issues, just that what I got was an Exorcist flick that thinks its dealing with Big Issues, when really, you're better off buying The Big Issue, since not only have you paid for someone to grab a burger or a pack a smokes, but also, there's a bit at the back tells you what flicks are worth seeing, and so you can avoid shite like this altogether.

Because Schrader's effort, it's almost as empty as Harlin's. What all this intellectual pondering amounts to, it turns out, is maybe a couple lines about "Why does God let bad things happen?"

"Why do people do bad things under harsh circumstances?"

"Why are good people capable of evil, given the right nudge?"

There ain't a terrible lot of elaboration on it all, neither. Most times what we learn is that oh, it's cause a Satan. Most times we get burdened with the kinda half-formed nonsense nobody would give any credence to for half a damn syllable, and if they do, most likely they're fifteen years old and in love with a lass thinks they smell like dead emu.

Because baby ain't no way around it, this is just fucking awful.

Harlin's was awful too, but my god was it fun.

This is just painful, and mostly on account of how all that yacking about "Ooh, it's a more cerebral affair, that's why they shelved it", that turns out to be a loada wank dust setllin in the corners of the footwear.

Nobody says anything worth listening to for a second, characters are under-developed, and worse, Schrader opens his film with a glimpse of real evil by way of a WW2-set flashback (handled with a hella lot more taste than Harlin's reprise, i.e, no CGI blood splatters out infants heads, no Bond Villain Nazis) then spends the last forty minutes expecting us to be moved or scared or whatever the fuck by a fella floating a few feet above an altar growling in the kinda voice nobody this side of 1959 would ever for a second consider even mildly unsettling.

And I'm saying to Sir Fleming, what I'm pointing out is that what makes it all truly soul-destroying is the moments when the flick transcends the shite either side, thunders horseback long some shimmering celestial plane and for that moment, when the clouds a mediocrity part for long enough, you see what coulda been.

You see that sometimes Schrader thinks about heading in the direction Bergman circa-1969 or Fahey circa-1997 would maybe a ran towards, all tortured suicidal twitches, all gunshots gainst the rocks, and the blood and brains hangin from the jagged stone, the color of a humanity terrified of being nothing more.