Seminary student Michael Kovak is sent to study exorcism at the Vatican in spite of his own increasing questioning of ‘faith’. Using his scepticism as a shield, Michael challenges his superiors to look to a more contemporary medicinal answer rather than ‘demons’, in treating the mentally sick. Only when Michael is sent to apprentice with the unorthodox exorcist Father Lucas does his determined logic begin to fail him, as he begins to witness a malign phenomenon for which science has no answer. ‘Inspired’ by true events apparently ‘The Rite’ is an entertaining psychological horror once it gets going, helped considerably by Hopkins in full ‘mad as march hare’ flow.