‘God played a trick on you…’
There are two ways to look at The Exorcist: Believer. As a possession movie in 2023, it’s a flawed if occasionally enjoyable modern horror film. As a direct sequel to 1973’s The Exorcist, widely regarded as the greatest horror film of all time, it is an abject failure. As Blumhouse Productions and director David Gordon Green have lumbered this run-of-the-mill story with the title The Exorcist, we must judge it on those terms. Buckle up…
Angela’s (Lidya Jewell) mother died in childbirth and so she is raised by her loving if overprotective father Victor (Leslie Odom Jr.). One day, she wanders into the woods with her friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) and the two girls emerge three days later seemingly possessed by a demon.
The Exorcist is a simple movie in many ways. Father Merrin represents the Catholic Church itself. Reliable and sturdy but old-fashioned and moribund. Father Karras, one of the all-time great horror movie characters, symbolises a loss of faith. That just leaves Regan, who in many ways is a Maguffin to act as a catalyst for the real showdown between the demon and Karras, and Regan’s mother Chris (Ellen Burstyn) who embodies the guilt of a mother attempting to ‘have it all’. In this film, there are many characters. Aside from those mentioned, we have Katherine’s devout Christian parents Miranda (Jennifer Nettles) and Tony (Norbert Leo Butz), Victor’s devout Christian neighbour Ann (Ann Dowd), another devout Christian neighbour who is also Victor’s gym buddy and then a variety of priests, pastors and preachers as well as a rootwork healer. At no point do any of these characters even begin to resemble an actual human person. The beauty in William Friedkin’s original vision (and oh how I wish he would have lived a little longer to pass judgement on this piece of shit) is that Chris and Regan, Karras and Merrin… they all felt like real people. That’s because Friedkin gave us time with these characters. And so, when Chris, a mother at the very end of her tether, finally submits to an exorcism for her daughter, this outlandish decision seems earned rather than forced. Here, that same decision is utterly without reason. The entire third act exists totally outside the world of logic.
I didn’t care about any of these characters. How could anyone? They are all one-dimensional archetypes without an ounce of humanity. Even the great Ellen Burstyn can’t save this thing. Truth be told, her inclusion feels devoid of meaning. A misstep even. Pointless. If you removed her character and wrote this as a new movie freed from the shackles of the Exorcist franchise, you’d be left with a far superior finished product.
What can we conclude? Well, for one thing, Gordon Green can’t be given the keys to any more horror franchises. It’s hard to think of a more disastrous pairing than Halloween Ends and The Exorcist: Believer. Two genuinely terrible films. For another, is The Exorcist the worst horror franchise ever in terms of sequels? Aside from the third entry, every other sequel is an abomination. And to finish, sitting through this latest entry only makes the source material more compelling. Fifty years ago, William Friedkin made a film that was transgressive, dangerous even, powerful. This sequel is safe, forgettable and dull .
If this film does end up being the first in a new trilogy as both Blumhouse and Gordon Green have suggested, they can at least be safe in the knowledge that the next film in the franchise can’t possibly be any worse than this.