Talk of the devil...and video, too.

Here's a reasonable-quality trailer for Mikael Hafstroem‘s forthcoming The Rite, returning to the theme of exorcism that Hollywood loves to attempt to revive decades after William Friedkin's The Exorcist gave the subject its most acclaimed outing in 1973.

Based on The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist by Matt Baglio, The Rite tells the dark story of apprentice exorcist Michael Kovak (Colin O’Donoghue) who, whilst studying at the Vatican, meets a kind of Catholic Yoda in the form of Father Lucas (Anthony Hopkins) - thus recreating the master/pupil relationship from William Peter Blatty's semi-fictionalised account of a 1950s exorcism, which became such a hit as a movie in the early 1970s.

Those interested in the more spirtual significance of this sensational subject might like to check out the writing of Fr. Teilhard De Chardin, on whom The Exorcist's Fr. Lankester Merrin (Max Von Sydow in the movie) was roughly based. M. Scott Peck's People Of The Lie is another fascinating read on the nature of human evil, including accounts of possession - clearly an important internal research for the writer on his slow journey back to the Catholic faith.

The Rite is released in the US on January 28th 2011.

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