‘Prey for the Devil’ review: Welcome to Exorcism 101

Ten years ago, Hollywood's persistent attempts to recapture the sensational success of "The Exorcist" reached a new nadir with "The Devil Inside." There's no reason to ever revisit that wretched found-footage schlock, save perhaps for a single unintentionally funny scene, the one where the film's documentarian heroine wanders blithely into a Roman auditorium and essentially audits an exorcism class sponsored by the Catholic church. Such courses are, believe it or not, a real thing. They gained new attention in 2018, when the Vatican hosted a weeklong seminar, inviting priests from all over to learn the tricks of the demon-banishing trade. (The class ran a cool $300, but who can put a price on saving souls? Plus, lunches were provided.)

"Prey for the Devil," a piously dull and scare-free addition to the ever-growing canon of "Exorcist" wannabes, may have drawn inspiration from that news, and maybe from that one amusing scene in that one bad movie. It presents a world where the Vatican's attempts to educate a new generation of holy men on the threat of demonic possession has resulted in the founding of satellite institutions across the globe, all offering extensive studies in the field of sending evil packing. That's not the only wrinkle the film puts in church tradition. No sooner has it introduced the idea of devil-vanquishing trade schools than it's challenging their gendered admission policies. Is there room on the attendance sheet for a holy woman?

Enter Sister Ann (Jacqueline Byers), one of the new nuns at the Boston branch of this higher learning network. (Don't expect any field trips to Fenway; "Prey for the Devil" was shot, quite atrociously, in Bulgaria.) Up until her arrival, exorcism education was just for the priests. But Ann is determined to shatter that glass ceiling. Nearby Harvard took over a century to go coed, but hey, maybe it just lacked a prospective student with Ann's trailblazing gumption. Before long, she's accompanying the priests down to the basement of the building, where the faculty keeps a possessed girl behind class—Reagan MacNeil as a practice test for first years.