What’s up with horror films these days? Every other month, audiences are seemingly treated to middling efforts that are more sleepy than scary.

It feels like, as with the superhero genre, Hollywood is scraping the bottom of the barrel, with nothing new or interesting to offer. Case in point: director Julis Avery’s “The Pope’s Exorcist”.

The flick is based on the memoirs of one Gabriele Amorth, an Italian priest who, before his death in 2016, claimed to have exorcised tens of thousands of people during his lifetime.

It’s quite the story, although sceptics should take it with a pinch of salt: this was the same bloke who claimed yoga and “Harry Potter” lead to evil.

In any case, the film follows Amorth, played by Russell Crowe – not the first time the Australian has played an Italian with dealings in Rome!

Amorth is depicted as a skilled exorcist, respected by the clergy but disliked by his superiors, who question his unorthodox methods.

Of course, he is the man the church calls upon when an alarming case of demonic possession crops up in Spain.

As it turns out, the recently widowed Julia Vasquez (Alex Essoe) has inexplicably relocated to a creepy old abbey with her two children Amy (Laurel Marsden) and Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney).

While wandering about the dark basement, Henry looks into something he shouldn’t have, and poof! He’s now demon spawn. Pretty standard stuff.

So, Pope John Paul II (Franco Nero) himself sends Amorth to deal with the demonic problem, setting up a showdown between good and evil, yada yada.

If this is your first horror movie ever, congratulations on cutting your teeth. It’s a shame you didn’t do so on something better like “Ju-On” or “The Exorcist”.

The greatest failing of any comedy is if the audience doesn’t laugh. The same goes for horror films – if it doesn’t scare, it’s hard to care.

It’s actually rather strange since Avery has proven himself capable with horror elements: his 2016 action flick “Overlord” was immensely entertaining with striking horror imagery.

Yet, the stuff that’s supposed to be terrifying in “The Pope’s Exorcist” is mild and mundane compared with other horror films.

You have the pale possessed kid with bloodshot eyes talking in a guttural voice (um, that’s just how folks are when they are down with the flu). Lights flicker and go out. Things go bump in the night. Windows break. The demon throws people around.

Honestly, Wolf from “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” has a more terrifying presence.

It also doesn’t help that the final showdown between priest and demon is the usual screaming match. It’s been done to death, pun very much intended.

While genuine scares are in short supply, credit has to be given to Crowe, who must be aching after carrying the movie entirely on his shoulders. His Amorth is an unusual but charming fellow, a man who gets around on a moped and keeps a flask of the good stuff on him at all times.

Amorth was known to be funny in real life – even if headlines don’t necessarily reflect this – and, accordingly, Crowe plays him with a refreshing cheekiness bordering on mischievous, even when things are grim.

He pulls off a convincingly consistent Italian accent, even though it’s hard for this reviewer to tell if his command of the language is actually authentic.

Still, there’s little he can do to rescue the film from mediocre writing. And with so many possession movies in the market, you’d think they would have put in more effort to make “The Pope’s Exorcist” stand out.

There are moments when it seems to want to do so: the film briefly touches on Catholic Spain’s persecution of religious minorities, as well as the church’s history of abuse.

But just when you think it might actually make a brave stance, it chickens out.

There’s also some outlandish nonsense about the Spanish Inquisition, where the film suggests the atrocities were caused by its leader being possessed by a demon that sought to sully the church’s reputation. It’s akin to calling Nazis “monsters” when they were human beings who believed in and did monstrous things.

And that, dear readers, is far scarier than any demon could ever be.

As of press time, ‘The Pope’s Exorcist’ is screening in cinemas nationwide.