Our stern, but honorable protagonist, who in similar films might be played by Daniel Craig, Matt Damon or Liam Neeson, is Father Quart, portrayed by Richard Armitage (“Ocean’s 8”). We are introduced to Quart in suitable tough guy pose — performing press-ups while stripped to the waist, which is not the only time that this male body is presented as a spectacle. Quart is a member of Vatican External Affairs — i.e., Vatican intelligence — sent to investigate a church in Seville. The church is up for demolition so that urban regeneration / gentrification can proceed, but the owner of the land as well as the resident priest are resisting the developers. Mysterious deaths in the church cause the Vatican to take an interest, an interest further fueled by a mysterious hacker who breaks through the Vatican’s firewalls to send a personal plea to the Pope. Eager to avoid a scandal, the head of External Affairs, Monseñor Paolo Spada (Paul Guilfoyle, “Spotlight”) dispatches Quart, who is struggling with guilt over his last assignment. Quart insists to all that he encounters that he is in Seville to “write a report,” but the various figures he meets, including landowner Macarena Bruner (Amaia Salamanca, “Despite Everything”), Padre Príamo Ferro (Paul Freeman, “A Fantastic Fear of Everything”), Pencho Gavira (Rodolfo Sancho, “Don’t Listen”), Gris Masala (Alicia Borrachero, “Terminator: Dark Fate”) and Comisionado Navajo (Victor Mallarino, “Bluff”) are, not unreasonably, convinced that there is more going on. Indeed, Quart quickly learns of heated marital disputes, local legends, blackmail and cover-ups.

The Catholic Church lends itself to this genre. Like intelligence agencies, it is presented as a large-scale institution with bureaucracy, multiple departments, an almost regal presence at the top, senior bigwigs, field agents plus high technology, and tensions with local authorities. Some might find it unrealistic that a priest is equipped with a handgun and remote tech support, running around like James Bond or Jack Bauer. Others might find it all too believable that the Church wields this sort of power. Ultimately, whether any of this is realistic or not is irrelevant, because the real question is does it work as a narrative? For the most part, the answer is yes, as screenwriter-director Sergio Dow delivers an intriguing and absorbing thriller with attractive Euro-locations and many ornate surroundings in which its colorful cavalcade of characters clash. Dow’s direction is unremarkable but functional, eschewing shaky cam stylistics or jarring editing like Paul Greengrass, or attention-grabbing long takes à la Sam Hargraves’ “Extraction.” The action sequences are punchy but contained, allowing us to see the action choreography and keeping gunshots to a minimum.

Unusually though, Dow manages to make hacking dramatic. An early scene in the Vatican’s cyber security center features inter-cutting between the priestly tech team (because that’s a sentence) and a mysterious hooded figure hacking into their systems with all the import of breaching the NSA. Fingers tapping on keyboards and various screens of rapidly appearing code are not inherently exciting, but with judicious cutting, Dow and editors Pablo Blanco and Miguel Angel Prieto evoke genuine tension more akin to Michael Mann’s electrifying “Blackhat” than the tedious “Live Free or Die Hard.”

Pleasingly, despite the slightly camp hacker figure, The Man from Rome features relatively little in the way of moustache-twirling villainy. A loose assembly of enemies demonstrates the globalized nature of finance, embezzlement, development and corruption. That said, Gavira makes for a convincing bastard, both in terms of his financial venality and domestic attitude.

In opposition to these shady characters, Armitage is an engaging lead, channeling an energy reminiscent of Clive Owen in “The International.” As Monseñor Spada, Guilfoyle is a tricky presence, appearing by turns both trustworthy and also less so. Carlos Cuevas as Padre Cooey provides a Q-like figure to Quart’s 00-Dog Collar, while Salamanca makes Macarena a suitable damsel who manages her distress quite well, thank you very much. Fionniula Flanagan (“Havenhurst”) makes a surprising appearance as a Spanish Duchess, who is perhaps used rather heavy-handedly. As this list may indicate, the film has a lot of characters, and it may be hard to keep up with them, but it does keep the viewer guessing, which is part of the fun with a film like this. And by large, this is a fun film, that effectively infuses the genre tropes with its religious conceit. Some elements are less effective: There is a romance angle that goes nowhere, so begs the question of what was the point? More grating is the constant presence of English dialogue. One character is Irish and two are American, the rest are Spanish, Italian or from Eastern Europe. Yet in Vatican City and Seville, everyone speaks English, with a variety of accents. With a largely Spanish cast and a clear presence of internationalism, the English is quite jarring, to the extent that when Quart orders a coffee in Spanish, it comes as something of a relief. For an international co-production between Spain, Italy and Colombia, it is strange and annoying that subtitles still seem to be a big problem.

Aside from these two aspects, and a rather clunky title, The Man from Rome is an effectively intriguing conspiracy mystery that blends espionage, cyber thrills and religion into a rich concoction. It may not be worth devout worship, but no one involved in the film need say a Hail Mary.

In fact, there’s a fun mix of everything — the film checks off every item in the list of a scenario where things are prone to happen. The cozy house in the countryside, a desolate setting, city folk outside their element, a friendly stranger, among many others. However, the suitable development of these characters makes us forget about much of it being something we saw before in another movie. Harding’s script makes sure the tone is first set for our relationship with these characters. After that, well, the nightmare begins, rules get broken and Making Monsters becomes a movie that’s not easy to forget.

A couple consisting of a social media prankster Chris (Tim Loden, “Bloodlines” TV series) and his always forgiving fiancée Allison (Alana Elmer) decide to take up on an offer made by an old friend Jesse (King Chiu) to spend the weekend in the house that he just bought. It’s actually a remodeled church. There’s a first time for everything and it’s not at all eerie. Visiting such a weird place is exciting!

Fresh out of a doctor’s visit the couple have decided to settle a bit. Allison is trying to get pregnant and she asks Chris to not scare her for the sake of being stress free and having a successful fertility treatment (their claim to fame is a YouTube prank show channel in which Chris is always scaring the hell out of Allison). She remarks this as they begin their trip. Once they arrive, a nice man named David (Jonathan Craig) receives them and tells them their friend cannot make it in time, but they can wait for him inside. He’s a horror makeup artist (in real life too) so this place is full of masks and statues and costumes. Extra points for making the surroundings ooze with extra creepiness.

As they get more acquainted with David, the couple starts to loosen up. They get drunk, have sex and fall asleep. It’s idyllic to say the least. That is until they wake up the next morning without their cell phones at hand, no electric power, hidden cameras abound, and no David. When they decide to do something about it, they realize this relaxing trip to the countryside is not what they were expecting.

The film progresses very slowly. Almost to a point of absolute desperation. But once the couple discovers the threat behind the mystery, there’s a revolution in the dynamics of the film. What started out as lighthearted soon becomes a horrific experience with a sadistic masked man that will stop at nothing to deliver harm. His intentions follow a pattern that’s full of surprises (is it or isn’t it a prank?). This plot element makes Making Monsters a survival horror film with few glitches and more intelligence given to its characters than you would think. They’re not the typical dumb people trying to escape.

The prankster is not the idiot often found in found footage films, the killer is not the mastermind that seems to move at great speed (although seemingly to plod along at best), and the damsel in distress is hardly a damsel. What more could I ask for? Making Monsters is not the perfect sibling to “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” but its wonderful hint at social media and technology make it a damn good selection for a double feature.

Like many a ghost tale, The Banishing uses the possibility of a spectral presence as a metaphor for past fears and regrets, and especially sin. Beginning with a priest reading from an intriguingly defaced Bible, we quickly move to a horrific murder scene and a subsequent response. Clearly, the house where this event and the rest of the film takes place has some dark secrets. From here, we are introduced to Marianne (Jessica Brown Findlay, “Lullaby”) and her daughter Adelaide (Anya McKenna-Bruce, “Adult Material” TV series), as they arrive at the house we have already seen (run away!). Marianne’s relatively new husband, Linus (John Heffernan, “Official Secrets”) has recently been appointed priest for this parish, somewhere near Colchester in the late 1930s. Characters refer to the rise of fascism in Europe and the appeasement strategy of Neville Chamberlain. The film’s focus, however, is on Marianne and her relationships with both Adelaide and Linus. The scenes between Adelaide and Marianne are charming and genuine, which is further emphasized as we learn more about Marianne’s history and the debt she is expected to feel towards Linus. Expectations lead to family dinners become increasingly strained as Linus adheres to strict the rules associated with his position, his adherence exposing his inner weakness and lack of conviction.

The fractures in the family are escalated as Marianne hears unusual noises and Adelaide begins acting strangely. Moreover, a fear of authority starts to loom over them. Initially the authority is represented by Linus, but as his weakness becomes more apparent the menacing role is filled by Bishop Malachi (John Lynch, “Boys from County Hell”), whose visits to the family remind everyone of their place. Marianne, however, finds alternative perspectives from maid Betsy (Jean St. Clair) as well as local conspiracy theorist Harry Price (Sean Harris, “Mission: Impossible – Fallout”). As she learns more, she becomes increasingly at odds with the patriarchal establishment.

Such an arc is typical for the gothic tale, as the female protagonist is repressed and her sanity is questioned by those around her and eventually herself. The Banishing takes this conceit further, using the traditional haunted house tropes of long corridors, deep shadow and creepy dolls (there must be a specialist agency, Demonic Dollies, perhaps). Smith adds the extra feature of catacombs beneath the house, which might be clichéd but are used to brilliant effect due to very limited light and some flashes of horrific imagery including hooded figures and a bloodied woman. The questioning is less of Marianne’s mind but of the surroundings, especially as Smith starts to play with time. Time is a central element of cinema, as the medium of film is a capturing and re-ordering of time. Distorting our perception of time can be very frightening, and such a distortion is used here to exacerbate the sense of menace.

As well as time, another central cinematic element that the film distorts is images. It may seem trite, but as cinema is the presentation of images, create mistrust in these and you create unease. A common device in horror and especially ghost stories are mirrors, and the mirrors here are used with great invention. We have probably all seen horror films in which reflections appear and then disappear, but here we have reflections that do not match the original person who looks into the glass. Time is again central here, as Marianne or Adelaide move their arms only for their reflections to move out of sync with them. Both image and time add to the idea of the world around Marianne being untrustworthy. Nor is the temporal disjunct confined to the mirrors, as sometimes we see a figure enter a room and see the same figure in the background. What is the source of the haunting here? Is it some dark secret buried beneath the house, or is Marianne experiencing different moments in time simultaneously? As her unease grows, so too does ours, aided by occasional bursts of bloody violence.

When it focuses on Marianne and the menace she encounters within the house, The Banishing is both eerie and brutal. It loses its way somewhat when attempting to connect ideas of familial and religious repression to the rise of fascism. Linus and Marianne’s arguments over the appropriate response to Hitler’s Germany never goes beyond those arguments, while brief references are made to links between senior church figures and the Third Reich. These ideas are interesting but insufficiently developed and feel like they were forced in from another film. In an interview at FrightFest 2020, Smith explained that he wanted to make a point about contemporary UK politics, suggesting that the Britain of the 1930s was what the Brexit movement seek to recreate. Smith’s intention is noble and horror does lend itself to political commentary, but here it feels clumsy and too overt.

Aside from this diversion, The Banishing is a hugely satisfying watch, that had this critic getting tense and then jumping with fear. The performances are strong, especially Findlay who displays resolve and courage alongside fear and frustration. Harris is a hoot as Price, his shambling gait and flowing arms suggesting intoxication but never slipping into parody. Smith directs all with a keen eye for detail that allows him to disrupt the space much as he does time. It offers much for fans of suspense as well as moments of gore and offers some substance behind its scares. And it carries that warning of so many horror films: Never let your child play with an eyeless doll!

On May 13, 1917, three children, 10-year-old Lúcia (Stephanie Gil, “Terminator: Dark Fate”) and her younger cousins Francisco (Jorge Lamelas) and Jacinta (Alejandra Howard, “Cleo” TV series) were tending their family’s flock of sheep at the Cova da Iria, the family pastureland in the Portuguese village of Aljustrel on the outskirts of Fátima, when they had a striking vision of a Lady (Joana Ribiero, “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote”) dressed in white near a small oak tree. Claiming that she came from heaven, she asks the children to return to the same place on the thirteenth day of each month for the next five months, promising that a miracle would be performed that will convince the people of the village of her appearance and receive her message of peace. She also gives the children personal messages that could only be revealed later.

Written by Barbara Nicolosi, Valerio D’Annunzio and Marco Pontecorvo and taken from Lúcia’s memoirs, Fatima, directed by Pontecorvo (“Partly Cloudy with Sunny Spells”), son of director Gillo Pontecorvo (“The Battle of Algiers”), peeks beyond the boundaries of the known in his retelling of the fact-based 1917 sighting of the Lady identified as the Virgin Mary, first brought to the screen in 1952 in “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.” The present story is told from the point of view of the three young children, especially that of Lúcia who bears the main task of convincing the community of the authenticity of her visions.

The film is book-ended by a fictional conversation held at the Carmelite convent in Coimbra, Portugal in 1989 between a now elderly Sister Lúcia (Sônia Braga, “Bacurau”) and Professor Nichols (Harvey Keitel, “The Irishman”), a skeptical Professor of Religion. Though the flashbacks attempt to put the visions in a modern day context, the experience of the children unfolds in real time and they deliver performances that are real and beautifully realized, especially that of Gil whose beatific smile is enough to convince us of her divine revelation. According to Pontecorvo, “Lúcia, for me, is . . . someone that can see beyond and can get in touch with another level in a way that not all of us have the possibility of doing.”

Unlike many Hollywood films in which spiritual events are artificially enhanced by CGI effects and heavenly sounding music to create a “spiritual feeling,” Pontecorvo’s depiction of the Lady is of a real woman who walks barefoot on the mud, not a fuzzy image floating in the air. Filmed entirely in Portugal by cinematographer Vincenzo Carpineta (“Let’s Talk”), Fatima creates a striking sense of place and time. It is the time of World War I and a weary world prays for peace. The villagers gather daily in the town square to listen as mayor Artur Santos (Goran Visnjic, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) reads the names of local soldiers who have been declared dead or missing. Lúcia’s family hopefully await news from the front about Lúcia’s brother Manuel (Elmano Sancho, “The Black Book”). People struggling with the loss of a loved one receive little comfort, however, from a hardline anti-clerical government.

As Lúcia struggles to overcome the disbelief of her mother, Maria Rosa (Lúcia Moniz, “Hero on the Front”) and her father Antonio (Marco D’Almeida, “Night Train to Lisbon”), she must also deal with the outright hostility of the mayor, the local pastor Father Ferreira (Joaquim de Almeida, “The Hitman’s Bodyguard”), and the bishop (João D’Ávila, “The Easy Way”). During one of Mary’s visits at Fátima, the children experience a vision of Hell with all its accompanying charms such as an ocean of fire, devils, and shrieking souls, but the Lady tells them that her visit was a way of saving the tormented souls in Hell. Despite the children’s belief in what they had seen, they are pressured by her parents, the church, and the secular officials to recant and admit their story was just a made-up game.

On October 13th, however, a perceived miracle took place before an estimated 50,000 people who testified that the midday sun suddenly appeared like a silver disk, then began “to rotate, dance, and whirl like a pinwheel.” Wobbling across the sky, it plunged towards the earth as people screamed and looked for a place to hide and then sighed in relief and amazement as the sun re-ascended towards its rightful position in the sky. Today, the basilica of Our Lady of Fatima stands near the Cova da Iria as the Lady requested and draws thousands of visitors each year. In 2017 Pope Francis canonized Francisco and Jacinta, both of whom died in the flu epidemic of 1918, while Lúcia’s canonization is still pending.

Fatima is a lovely film that, unlike previous versions of the story, explores the inner life of the characters and portrays the Marian visits without being preachy. What the visions represent is beyond the scope of this review, yet, as Anne Baring says in her book, “The Dream of the Cosmos,” “the passionate longing of the human heart has always been to press beyond the boundaries of the known, to break through the limitations of our understanding, to extend the horizon of awareness.”

Marian apparitions as well as other visions of the “Divine Feminine,” according to a Newsweek magazine article in 1997 article, have numbered at least four hundred in the twentieth century alone and have been reported from antiquity down into modern times at times appearing as Isis, Kali, Durga, and Ishtar as well as the Virgin Mary. Fatima challenges our normal consensus view of reality and strives to evoke in us a renewed sense of mystery regardless of our religious or secular beliefs. Allowing us to see the world through a broader lens, it points us towards a new connection with the cosmos.

The film begins with a nameless wanderer, known as The Man (Shea Whigham, “Joker”) roaming the empty rural highways of Texas. He is kindly picked up by a Catholic minister David Martin (Bruno Bichir, “Sicario: Day of the Soldado”). Along the way, David begins to suspect the wanderer may be a fugitive, resulting in an altercation that leaves David in a shallow grave and The Man with all his belongings. Seeking refuge, The Man assumes the minister’s identity in a modest Texas town, but it’s not too long before his past begins to catch up with him.

Although never fully expounded upon, Teems teases a history of judgment and pain in the fictional town of Bevel, Texas. As The Man begins his preaching, he is met with the challenge of connecting with a predominately Mexican congregation, most of whom do not even speak English. Through his attempts to engage, however, he discovers an absence of faith in the town, particularly through Celia (Catalina Sandino Moreno, “A Most Violent Year”), a woman who has misgivings about her own past and how it has affected her family in the present.

Coming to terms with his own decisions, The Man begins to strengthen the faith in the community through his sermons about sin and forgiveness, much to the surprise of Moore (Michael Shannon, “Knives Out”), the town’s white police chief. Like The Man, Moore is propelled by a sense of duty under questionable circumstances. He’s a complicated contradiction; neither cruel nor kind. He expresses a sense of vulnerable care towards Celia — whom he is sleeping with — yet exhibits an accusatory attitude towards her cousin Valentin (Bobby Soto, “A Better Life”), a known drug dealer. When Valentin robs David’s van, he becomes the prime suspect of Moore’s growing suspicions that something sinister is afoot in his quiet town, which only become more targeted after the minister’s body is uncovered in the titular quarry.

While each character is burdened with resentment of their past, not a lot is known about any one of them to make their journeys particularly compelling. The Man bears a wound on his palm early in the film, obviously emblematic of Christ’s crucifixion, signaling his remorse and willingness to find redemption through faith. Yet, the details of his crimes are under-explained in a reveal that comes way too late to bear much significance. Valentin is irrefutably a criminal — innocent in this case — but while Moore’s persistent allegations against him are not completely unreasonable given the lack of evidence presented, a preconceived bias exists within him that he refuses to confront. And while it’s always a pleasure to see Moreno in a film, her character mostly exists to give context to the male leads around her.

Teems weaves a tapestry of muddled ethics that is mostly carried by the capable performances of his A-List cast — and makes for a few suitably engaging interactions between Whigham and Shannon in particular — but there are otherwise too few thrills or surprises to be found in the slow-burn yarn that unfolds.

The Quarry asks many questions. What is the cost of forgiveness? Do bad people deserve redemption? Where is the line between truth and lies in one’s duty to law or faith? As lived-in as Teems makes the town of Bevel, there’s a grander story to be told from these questions that never materializes, and it ultimately results in a humdrum analysis of race and faith with no clear hypothesis.

Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles’ (“The Constant Gardener”) The Two Popes is not only a master class in acting, but a film that sends a strong message that people who disagree and do not even like each other can learn to listen. Written by Anthony McCarten (“Bohemian Rhapsody”) and beautifully shot in Argentina and Italy by cinematographer César Charlone (“American Made”), the film is an account of the relationship between the ultra-conservative Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins, “Noah”) and the liberal Argentine cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Jonathan Pryce, “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote”), the future Pope Francis. Despite their flaws, Meirelles humanizes the two men, showing that, whatever their past mistakes may have been, they can meet on common ground.

Although their conversations are fictional (we do not know if in fact they ever met), according to Meirelles, “the lines were taken from interviews or books.” Whether true or not and I have no reason to doubt it, the dialogue has such a feeling of authenticity that we do not question that it is coming from a deep place inside the two men. The film opens on a humorous note when Bergoglio attempts to order a plane ticket on his smart phone, but his unfamiliarity with the device leads the airline representative to think that it is a prank call and hangs up on him. We then flashback to 2005 and the death of Pope John Paul II, a beloved figure in the church for 26 years, followed by the accession of John Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, a man dedicated to upholding traditional Catholic theories and practices.

Since Bergoglio had submitted several requests to resign from his duties as cardinal, he is now summoned to the Vatican where the new pope explains that his resignation would be interpreted as a rejection of his own leadership and he refuses to consider it, deflecting and distracting at every opportunity. As the two men share opinions about the state of the Catholic Church (using several languages that include Latin, Italian and Spanish), Benedict struggles to understand the Argentinean’s point of view and, at one point, exclaims, “I disagree with everything you’ve said!” though the conversation continues without rancor. It is a discussion that is revealing and even inspiring.

The centerpiece of The Two Popes is the sudden resignation of Pope Benedict in 2013, the first pope to voluntarily vacate his office since Pope Gregory XII relinquished his title as a result of factionalism in the church in 1415, known to history as “The Great Western Schism.” The 85-year-old Benedict’s resignation is attributed to old age and failing health, yet may have also been related to the accusations of priests’ inappropriate relationships with altar boys and the VatiLeaks scandal, in which the Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, had leaked confidential documents exposing Vatican power struggles. While the issue of abuse by priests is brought up by Benedict, it is not dwelt on and the pontiff’s remarks on the issue are muted, perhaps a questionable decision.

To highlight their differences in a lighthearted way, we find out that Bergoglio likes ABBA, a Swedish pop group, especially their song “Dancing Queen,” while Benedict prefers classical piano and the Austrian TV program “Kommissar Rex,” which I guess means that he likes dogs and cops. Differences aside, with the retiring pope’s support, Bergoglio is elected as Pope Francis in 2013 and his address to the gathered throng in St. Peter’s Square demonstrates his warmth, humility, and commitment to social justice. As they eat pizza together, however, both men are open about real or perceived past transgressions. Pope Francis is still looked upon with disdain by some in Argentina because of his role in not doing enough to oppose the military junta during the country’s “Dirty War” in the 1970s.

At this point, the film flashes back to Argentina in the 70s when the young Bergoglio (Juan Minujin, “Zama”) refuses to take a stand when his fellow priests are arrested and tortured by the military dictatorship. Similarly, Benedict is haunted by his decision to join the Nazi Party in the 1930s, a fact he is constantly reminded of. While The Two Popes has been touted as an in-depth conversation between two esteemed men of the church, a promotion that does not sound very promising, given the quality of the performances and the overall production, the film is surprisingly entertaining and quite moving. Though its focus is on the church, it has a universal appeal. According to the director, “Tolerance is a commodity that we’re missing.” It is a message that is very relevant for our time.