Review: The Exorcist: Believer
You want to have faith. But believing in a horror sequel is a foolhardy prospect at best, and David Gordon Green‘s first of a planned trilogy of Exorcist sequels does not reward its believers. The comedy-to-horror director’s Halloween continuation got off to a promising start (we ranked it quite well) but since then it has been one disappointment after another. The Exorcist: Believer is the latest misstep, a pale imitation of the late William Friedkin’s original movie that misunderstands what made it work.
The film isn’t entirely irredeemable. Leslie Odom, Jr. gives a decent performance as the lead character, a father who has lost his faith after losing his wife in childbirth. Predictably enough, his loss of faith is challenged when his daughter disappears with another girl and they both come back possessed. Odom does his best to sell you on the anger and grief of the character and provide some moving moments.
Unfortunately, the script and editing do him no favors. The character is very thinly written, with his sudden willingness to believe coming near the middle of the third act, conveniently timed to the film’s climax. No prior scenes actually show you a man wrestling with faith or belief. This is frustrating given how well Father Karras’s struggles with faith are handled in the original film, as were Chris MacNeill’s and the slow, steady process of eliminating all scientific explanation for the possession, always doubting whether it was true.
This film has none of the original’s subtlety. Despite taking place in 2023 and having room to explore how people of faith operate in the larger world today, the film is uninterested or incapable of examining this with any nuance or depth. The film’s writers don’t seem to even understand what Christian faith is about, adopting a unitarian-universalist approach that seems to clash with a film about the Christian version of demonic possession. This is all the funnier given that one of the religions represented is one that most Christian denominations would see as a potential avenue for demonic possession! The film also, comically, has a Catholic priest, a denomination known for not having women in the priesthood, anoint a woman to perform an exorcism he has just told been told by his bishop not to perform. This is apparently an acceptable work-around in his mind.
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Ellen and Leslie looking down in disbelief at the finished film.
The film feels the need to pay homage to the original through gimmicky nods, and it tries to substitute the grandeur of Max von Sydow‘s entrance with the priest bursting into the home like an Avengers-style superhero to start rapidly performing exorcism rites like its a superpower. This is just one of many silly attempts to cash in on nostalgia but missing the point entirely. A corny reference to the “the power of Christ compels you” line occurs, among other “homages.”
Ellen Burstyn‘s return as Chris might actually be the worst possible example of how to bring a character back. She is set up to deliver bad expository dialogue over and over and make references to the original movie, then her character is exorcised from the film in a manner that can only be called disrespectful to the character.
The film fails due to just how underwritten it is. The barest of attempts are there to set up characters and feelings, but the film wants to rush away from that into the “creepy” parts, so none of it resounds. Even some of the moments touted in the trailers simply don’t land due to how perfunctory and expected they are. Gordon’s abundance of handheld camerawork occasionally manages to raise a few goosebumps, but otherwise it’s a lame crutch to build up suspension.
The Exorcist: Believer feels far less transgressive than the original film. Any potential shocking material is hastily backed away from, and the final trick is so out of the blue that it doesn’t really work either. We had all better say our prayers that Green figures out a way to save this continuation, or we’re in for two more rough entries.
A new updated franchise ranking.
Franchise Ranking
- The Exorcist (1973)
- The Exorcist III (1990)
- Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005)
- The Exorcist: Believer (2023)
- Exorcist: The Beginning (2004)
- Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)