According to real-life Vatican reports, occurrences of demonic possession have increased significantly in recent years. In response, the Catholic church has secretly reopened exorcism schools to train priests in the sacred rite. The Devil's Light immerses you into the world of one of these schools; humanity's last line of defense against the powers of everlasting evil. Jacqueline Byers ("Roadies," "Salvation") stars as Sister Ann, who devoutly believes that performing exorcisms is her calling, despite the fact that historically only priests - not sisters - are allowed to perform them. When one professor senses her special gift, allowing her to be the first nun to study and master the ritual, her own soul will be in danger as the demonic forces she battles reveal a mysterious connection to her traumatic past.

Production Budget Analysis

The production budget for Prey for the Devil (2022) has not been publicly disclosed.

CAST: Jacqueline Byers, Colin Salmon, Christian Navarro, Lisa Palfrey, Nicholas Ralph, Ben Cross DIRECTOR: Daniel Stamm CINEMATOGRAPHY: Denis Crossan MUSIC: Nathan Barr PRODUCTION: Lionsgate, Gold Circle Films, Confluence Productions

Box Office Performance

Prey for the Devil earned $19,802,293 domestically and $17,853,406 internationally, for a worldwide total of $37,655,699. Revenue was split 53% domestic / 47% international.

Profitability Assessment

Insufficient publicly available data to assess profitability.

INDUSTRY IMPACT

PRODUCTION NOTES

▸ Production

In October 2019, the film was first announced as The Devil's Light. The screenplay was written by Robert Zappia, and James Hawes was initially set to direct. Lionsgate and Gold Circle Films co-produced the film, with shooting planned to take place in the spring of 2020. Paul Brooks, Jessica Malanaphy, Todd R. Jones, and Earl Richey Jones produced the film while Scott Niemeyer, David Brooks and Brad Kessell were executive producers. Zappia's screenplay, originally titled The Devil's Light, had made the 2018 BloodList. In February 2020, Daniel Stamm was set to direct instead, marking his return to the exorcism sub-genre after the 2010 film The Last Exorcism. In June 2020, Jacqueline Byers was announced as the lead actress, starring alongside Virginia Madsen, Ben Cross, Colin Salmon, Christian Navarro, and Nicholas Ralph.

Filming took place during the summer of 2020 in Sofia, Bulgaria. Actor Ben Cross died on August 18, 2020, and had wrapped filming for his part ten days beforehand.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Summary: N/A

CRITICAL RECEPTION

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.

Leigh Monson of The A.V. Club gave the film a D grade, writing, "Its dominant thematic threads are at war with one another, shambling around as one story wears the flesh and appearance of another, leaving neither premise wholly intact in a film with the meat stripped from its bones." The South China Morning Post's James Marsh gave it 1/5 stars, saying it "seems content to congregate crowds of stern-faced priests around a shrieking bedridden child and have them spout erroneous incantations for 90 minutes. Even with the most forgiving of horror fans, it doesn't have a hope in hell." A.A. Dowd of the Houston Chronicle called the film "a piously dull and scare-free addition to the ever-growing canon of Exorcist wannabes" and "just another regurgitation of yesterday's devout scare tactics, spewing diet 'Exorcism' clichés as freely as Linda Blair once painted the walls in pea soup."

Dennis Harvey of Variety was more positive, writing, "even if it falls short of being particularly memorable or scary, this is a decently entertaining possession potboiler."