Hostage to the Devil

I'm a former Catholic who left the Church not long after reaching my teens. Watching this reminded me why I left, although the film is not really about Catholicism per se but seems to have been meant to capitalize on the current craze for the paranormal – ghosts, time travelers, ESP, demonology, etc.

The film features Catholic clergy and paranormal investigators as well as a couple of people who profited from its subject, the late, former Jesuit priest and well-known exorcist, Malachi Martin. It also contains some old video clips and audio recordings of Martin as well as of some purported exorcisms (but nothing at all juicy or substantive is offered up in these).

With every word uttered by Martin in the film (surely, he kissed the Blarney Stone), I became more convinced he was just a charming, eloquent con man who preyed on gullible Catholics uncomfortable with changes in the Church and having difficulty aligning their Catholic world view with the rapid advances in science and technology in the last half of the 20th century.

Besides, there's always been a large measure of show business in Catholic rites and rituals. After all it was the only entertainment available for the impoverished masses throughout most of European history. As its ultimate carnival act, exorcism had it all -- the terror of the pit, the horrors of possession, and the thrill and exaltation of salvation. Hollywood didn't invent but merely regurgitated a tried and true horror formula that was around for centuries.

Anyway, Malachi Martin surely was no saint, as some in the film seem to believe, but only a carny barker who was good at getting people into his tent.

This was not bad. I thought it was interesting mostly

I knew nothing of this man Malachi Martin when I looked into watching Hostage to the Devil but I enjoy a good exorcism story as much as the next and going into this I believed it to be a straight up movie and not actually a documentary on the gentleman's life. It wasn't actually until I came on IMDB some 20 minutes into the film to check out previous reviews of this documentary to see if this was one of those fake 'spoof' type of affairs and while I I believe this person existed now, throughout the film I still got this air of inauthenticity about it. Perhaps it was because the film was too pro-Malachi and his beliefs to establish a balanced view of the man with just one dissenter who I felt was made out to be a bitter dying man because Martin allegedly started an affair with his wife. It was an absorbing watch however and a curious look at what many 'rational' minded group of people could just have easily labelled Martin as a charismatic con artist.

This is a fascinating documentary about Father Malachi Martin, who authored the incredible book by the same name. The book was so good that I was afraid this documentary wouldn't live up to its name. But it surpassed my expectations. I loved this documentary, but please make sure to read the book as well.

It's like one of the paranormal lay assistants said in documentary: You will either believe or not believe. All he can do is get the word out.

My review is written as a practicing Catholic who knows Church history well. The Jesuits indeed took a turn for the worse leading up to and post Vatican 2. Malachi was right to be disillusioned with the 12yrs it takes to become a Jesuit, only for it to succumb to leftist ideology and marxist indoctrination with "liberation theology". Vatican 2 opened the floodgates to all kinds of clerical and liturgical abuses. Fast forward to present day, and you know the smoke of Satan is suffocating the heirarchy.

I can't speak to his detractors like the Time magazine correspondent who had a lifelong ax to grind against Malachi. What I do know is that the seal of the priesthood is indelible, so while not living in the Jesuit community post 1965, he still has the authority to conduct exorcisms, if given approval by the local bishop.

If you are a true believer of Christ, you absolutely cannot deny the existence of Satan and the fact that people are afflicted with demonic possession. Christ exorcised many demons on this earth and he gave his disciples the authority to do so in his name to help those suffering. But at the end of the day, supernatural or preternatural (demonic) posession is still rare. The devil doesn't have to resort to those measures. It's easy enough im post modern culture to ensare others in evil activity in daily choices we make to be selfish and put ourselves instead of neighbor and God first.