“The Exorcist: Believer” Review
(From Left) Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) arrives to help a father named Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.) save his child from the possession of a nefarious demon in “The Exorcist: Believer,” a sequel to the 1973 classic film “The Exorcist.”
Whether you call them legacy sequels or “requels” (not quite a reboot and not quite a sequel either), resurrecting iconic films and characters with new casts has been a popular trend for quite some time. Whether we’re talking about television shows like “Twin Peaks” and “Samurai Jack” or films like “Top Gun: Maverick”, “Creed” and the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy, audiences love seeing their favorite characters coming back years later to tell more stories. This is especially evident in horror with several iconic series being revived. Some of them have been great like “Scream V”, “Candyman (2021)” and “Doctor Sleep” while others have been “Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2022)”. Don’t be “Texas Chainsaw Massacre”. With such varying quality, the “Halloween” franchise somehow managed to be both refreshing and disappointing, fulfilling both ends of this spectrum. (Stay with me. You’ll see how this ties into “The Exorcist: Believer”.)
I don’t think anyone expected David Gordon Green, once best known for the comedy classic “Pineapple Express” and acclaimed indie dramas like “George Washington” and “Joe”, to gravitate to horror but he surprised everyone, including myself, with his 2018 direct sequel to the iconic slasher “Halloween”. Clearly the best film in the franchise since “Halloween II” was released in 1980, Green’s film that disregarded any “Halloween” sequel after the original felt like a return to form and showed off the director’s talent for crowd-pleasing horror. As for the two sequels, “Halloween Kills” is a total mess but it’s having such a good time existing that I kind of love it for that. “Halloween Ends” on the other hand felt bogged down by a melodramatic plot and a lack of Michael Myers that ended the trilogy on a disappointing note.
When I saw that David Gordon Green was tapped to direct a sequel to “The Exorcist”, dubbed by many to be the scariest film ever made, I was cautiously hopeful. After all, you can make a good sequel to “The Exorcist”. In fact, it’s been done already with William Peter Blatty (who wrote the original “Exorcist” novel and wrote the original film’s screenplay) writing and directing “The Exorcist III,” an underrated followup that more than makes up for “Exorcist II: The Heretic” which is a film that I urge you not to watch if you value your intelligence. Despite a director I like behind the camera and some great actors taking part, “The Exorcist: Believer” is a lifeless mess that not only fails to live up to the “Exorcist” name but also fails to be the least bit frightening.
50 years after the events of the original, two young girls named Angela and Katherine (Lidya Jewett and Olivia Marcum) go missing in the woods and reappear three days later with some minor injuries and no idea how much time has passed. When Angela’s father Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.) begins to notice strange behavior in his daughter, he begins to see that something dark and evil has taken root within his child. With both Angela and Katherine appearing to be possessed by the same demon, Victor and a group of friends gather together to perform an exorcism and save the souls of the children.
Despite not enjoying “The Exorcist: Believer”, I have to say that several of the performances were quite good. Leslie Odom Jr. brings this excellent believability as this skeptical man who slowly begins to realize the Biblical horror that has taken hold of his daughter. His commitment to Angela and his desire to protect her and Katherine does result in a protagonist that would have worked well in the original “Exorcist”. Lidya Jewett and Olivia Marcum were also remarkable in their dedication to their roles with a combination of solid delivery, great physicality and excellent make-up effects that make these girls look less human the longer the possession goes on.
One of the film’s few positive attributes are the excellent performances by Lidya Jewett (Left) and Olivia Marcum as two girls held captive by evil.
With the exception of a few key performances, the rest of “The Exorcist: Believer” ranges from dull to frighteningly bad. Both the original “Exorcist” film, directed by the late William Friedkin, and “The Exorcist III” had this surreal, eerie edge that kept the audience in a constant state of dread. You didn’t even need to have many jump scares because of how on edge you were for the entire film. This film doesn’t have that atmosphere and, without that, it’s already an uphill battle.
Aside from a few jump scares, the scares of this film feel tired, predictable and make the mistake of showing too much of the demon’s power. The imagery is what you’d expect from this kind of film with nothing shocking. Remember how chilling that scene involving Regan and a crucifix (you know the one) was in the original film? Such jolting moments are non-existent with this story.
When the titular exorcism begins, there’s none of the dread that should be present. In the original film, you felt trapped in this house with the room being so cold you could see people’s breath. Aside from feeling some sympathy for Victor and the relationship he has with Angela, there’s not much to keep me invested and certainly no suspense to make me scared. On top of that, some of these characters make decisions that were so dumb that it made me wish that they would meet the same fate as that drunkard director from the original film. Of course, when I made this wish, I came to regret it a few minutes later.
But the biggest problem with the film comes from how the story treats Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), one of the protagonists of “The Exorcist” who has since gone on to give lectures and write books about the possession of her daughter. Not only is this character on screen for a shockingly small amount of time, but what is done with her character resulted in a massive pile of disappointment. There truly was no reason to have Chris MacNeil in this film since, for the most part, “The Exorcist: Believer” is trying to stand apart from the original film. There’s not even much of a reason to call this an “Exorcist” film aside from the iconic status of the original film. It felt like a massive waste of Ellen Burstyn’s talents and it ultimately sums up what’s wrong with the film.
I have a terrible feeling that some overzealous critics might say that they’re glad William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty are dead so that they don't have to see “The Exorcist: Believer” which I find to be unnecessarily harsh. This film isn’t nearly as bad as “Exorcist II” which Friedkin notoriously despised, claiming it was as bad as watching a traffic accident. Blatty also hated the film and, in hindsight, wished he had taken Warner Bros. Pictures’ offer to write it just so “Exorcist II”, as we know it, didn’t exist. With “The Exorcist: Believer”, there’s just no life to it with even the ending being completely unsatisfying. I don’t feel a sense of triumph, a sense of sorrow, a sense of anything. The film is supposed to be the start of a new trilogy and it just feels like another attempt by studios to capitalize on an iconic name.
But I still have sympathy. After all, making any film centered on an exorcism has to be difficult because you will inevitably be compared to “The Exorcist”. I can only imagine the pressure of writing a follow-up to such an iconic masterpiece of horror. However, some horror films are still able to breathe new life into a cinematic exorcism including the decent and somewhat scary “Pope’s Exorcist”. But decent and somewhat scary are not what I would use to describe this film. I just see it as a disappointing franchise vehicle that, like the Ouija board in Regan’s basement, should have been left alone.
