It’s starting to look as though Guy Pearce is trying to be ‘that guy’ when it comes to showing up and taking on different roles that make him look awesome, uncertain, or just grizzled in a way that comes from years of experience and hard living. In The Seventh Day, he takes on the role of an exorcist that’s been around the block a few times and has to break in a rookie priest as they seek to take on the forces of evil, which appear to be all around them and poised to strike at any moment. There is obviously a very real and persistent threat that has to be dealt with as the story tends to lean towards a confrontation that will pit them both against their inner demons as well as any other evils that might want to take a crack at them. In a very big way, it does have the look and feel of something akin to Training Day with a Christian angle, but it’s bound to put the two main protagonists up against evils far worse than street gangs and crooked cops, though it’s also fairly obvious that the jump scares in this movie are going to be enough to scare those that can’t stand such moments even when they know they’re coming.
Movies that deal with exorcisms and the like are often those that many people will become initially interested in since they deal with a very antiquated part of Christianity that leans heavily towards a subject that is perfect for pop culture since it can be so easily marketed and pushed to the public. In other words, despite the Christian aspects, or maybe because of them, the horror aspect is simply easier to lean into since people tend to be attracted to things that scare them and are often ready and willing to stay no matter how much it terrifies them. When one thinks of how The Exorcist has been such a revered story for so long they kind of have to take into account the idea that the nature of humanity, while complicated at times, is bound to lead us in very different directions at times. What might appear to be dangerous and even controversial to some might be appealing to others. The idea of sin and its consequences is still something that many people see and perceive in a different manner, no matter what anyone wants to say about it, and movies dealing with the evils that are believed to plague humanity are often seen as great additions to the horror genre since the mythology behind them tends to feed into the imagination that takes hold as it helps to shape the creatures and situations that arise as a result. In other words, when one couples faith with imagination, it’s very likely to produce something that people will be intrigued by.
This movie does have a slightly different look to it though since it appears to be a little rougher around the edges, almost like a version of Constantine but slammed together with Training Day, Die Hard, and a few other elements that are bound to give it the overall image that it’s an older exorcist that’s gone a few rounds with evil showing a young priest the ropes during his first day on the job. That might sound blasphemous to some since the idea of an exorcism is taken very seriously among religious individuals, but in the spirit of calling it as it is, this movie does take on the look of something that’s going to possibly push the traditional feel to the side in order to deliver a one-two punch to the evil forces that are bound to show up. Guy Pearce is often known to be the kind of guy that, in certain roles, will be a very no-nonsense individual that’s all about getting in and getting the job done, as he was in Lockout. Much like that movie, he’ll be dealing with someone that has an idea of what’s going on but isn’t fully prepared for the rigors of what their task is going to be, meaning that Pearce will have to be the one to get them into and then out of danger. In a supernatural horror such as this however it’s almost never that simple, and from what it sounds like, it won’t be this time.
The trailer makes it sound as though evil is recruiting an army, gathering souls together for some fell purpose that the two priests will need to stop before it can grow any worse. So far it’s fairly vague on the details, but that’s bound to be a good thing since giving too much away can kind of spoil the effect. If nothing else, it looks like a movie that will be worth at least one look.
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