In 1973, The Exorcist shocked the world with the ultimate battle between good versus evil.
The William Friedkin film became the most successful film of all time, won Oscars, and lent horror a sense of respectability and prestige that still extends to the current day.
Many spoofs, homages and references to the film appear everywhere in pop culture and is a true landmark film that will stand the test of time.
The Exorcist: Believer is none of those things.
David Gordon Green, fresh off desecrating what remains of the Halloween franchise, has set his sights on The Exorcist, a franchise that has had its ups and downs but sinks to new lows with this entry.
The original 1973 film and 1990’s The Exorcist III were masterclasses in sustaining tension, and earned the scares because the audience has become so invested in what happens to the characters and bought into the setting.
In The Exorcist: Believer, the film commits the ultimate sin of filmmaking: you simply do not care what happens to the characters.
It can be argued that the film should stand on its own merits, it is impossible to pull off what William Friedkin and William Peter Blatty did all those years ago and is trying to be its own thing.
However, that argument is rendered null and void because the film directly invites comparisons to the original.
The film follows the structure of the original pretty faithfully: the film begins in a foreign locale that ends up having significance later on in the plot, we are introduced to the inner workings of a happy, but somewhat dysfunctional family, something horrible happens to a child that we never fully see but is inferred, the child starts acting and looking strange, and the forces of faith combine to drive the demon out.
If you asked ChatGPT to generate the plot of a new Exorcist film, it would be pretty similar to what the filmmakers have achieved here.
Regardless of one’s faith, believer or not, The Exorcist films stir that part of the brain that makes us think about a world beyond our own.
There is one worthwhile scene in the film, where Ann Dowd and Leslie Odom Jr. discuss their own interpretation of faith.
Dowd went on to become a nurse despite earlier hopes of becoming a nun, while Odom Jr. turned his back on spirituality following a personal tragedy.
In that moment, the film brushes up against why The Exorcist films still scare the hell out of people: regardless of your faith, the unexplainable is terrifying, and people turn to faith or science to combat those fears.
The original novel, the Friedkin film and the third film all explore this exploration of faith or knowledge as a shield against the unknown, which is an incredible idea for a film to explore.
For a brief minute, this new version of The Exorcist remembers that crucial detail and it looks like the film might justify its existence.
Sure enough, this idea is never picked up or remarked upon again.
Just this year, Aussie horror film Talk To Me had a lot more fun and generated a lot more scares with a shoestring budget, whereas this iteration of The Exorcist looks like an episode of television that was shot for Netflix.
Similar to how Halloween brought back Jamie Lee Curtis, The Exorcist drafts in Ellen Burstyn for a legacy sequel role, and to say the film wastes her would be underselling it.
Ellen Burstyn’s performance has the tenacity and zeal of someone who had an afternoon free to film their scenes and was doing it as a favour.
An actor of her calibre and talent deserves much better than the indignity of having David Gordon Green direct her.
If you were going to the trouble of bringing Ellen Burstyn back, why would you then proceed to do nothing interesting with her?
Leslie Odom Jr. and Ann Dowd deserve some credit for bringing some gravitas and dignity to their parts, but seeing those two overqualified actors trying to keep the movie going is like someone trying to turn back the sea tide with a spoon.
The film builds to a massive blowout exorcism sequence which should serve as the highlight of the film, but instead highlights just how much of a poor man’s imitation this film is.
A film being made at a studio level in 2023 should not have the same direction style and production values as a student film.
At the very least, a student film would at least try to keep things interesting – this film wanders around aimlessly before building up to a sequel hook that is laughably unearned.
The greatest crime committed by The Exorcist: Believer is the fact it is as scary as an episode of Scooby-Doo.
Horror is a purely subjective thing, what does and doesn’t scare someone differs from person to person, but in this case, there is nothing in this film that even approaches the level of the iconic head-spinning scene from the first, or the infamous hallway sequence in III.
If reports are to be believed, the film is the first in a planned trilogy, with a second film planned for release in 2025.
Only Pazuzu himself could conjure up a plan that evil.