‘Agnes’ Review: A Devilishly Conflicted Tale of Possession and Doubt

Those uncertain just how seriously Paul Verhoeven intended us to take the alternately earnest and lurid nunsploitation of “Benedetta” will be even more flummoxed by Mickey Reece’s “Agnes.” The prolific, idiosyncratic Oklahoma auteur’s latest is half exorcism thriller, half character drama of lost faith. But those two sharply differentiated parts add up to much less than a coherent whole, in addition to being too underdeveloped and tonally wobbly to satisfy in themselves. Unlike the squirrelly genre-bender that was the director’s last feature, “Climate of the Hunter,” conceptually near-random “Agnes” does not find its own singular terms to work within. Viewers… Read Full Article