The Exorcist: Believer Gets Official Rating

William Friedkin’s The Exorcist is considered by many to be the most terrifying film ever made, with the upcoming sequel The Exorcist: Believer looking to follow in that movie’s footsteps, as confirmed by its MPA rating. The film has secured an R rating, which is due to “some violent content, disturbing images, language, and sexual references.” What makes that original film so effective is more the conceptual horrors it implies, as opposed to delivering graphic violence, so with the film being rated R yet not for gruesome violence, Believer will seemingly also embrace abject terror than buckets of blood. The Exorcist: Believer hits theaters on October 13th.

In the 50 years since the original film landed in theaters, the franchise has earned multiple follow-up films and earned two seasons of a TV adaptation, creating a somewhat complicated mythology. This upcoming movie is meant to be a direct sequel to the original, and while the rating and concept might fall in line with the debut entry, director David Gordon Green teased that a new demon would be terrorizing characters.

“We use a new demon, no Pazuzu,” Green confirmed to IGN. “We feature a demon who studied demonologists might know.”

He added, “We’re not dismissing the other sequels, there’s just not a real relationship.”

The new film is described, “Since the death of his pregnant wife in a Haitian earthquake 12 years ago, Victor Fielding (Tony winner and Oscar nominee Leslie Odom, Jr.; One Night in Miami, Hamilton) has raised their daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett, Good Girls) on his own. But when Angela and her friend Katherine (newcomer Olivia Marcum), disappear in the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them, it unleashes a chain of events that will force Victor to confront the nadir of evil and, in his terror and desperation, see out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like this before: Chris MacNeil.”

The film also stars Emmy winner Ann Dowd (The Handmaid’s Tale, Hereditary) as Victor and Angela’s neighbor, and Grammy winner Jennifer Nettles (Harriet, The Righteous Gemstones) and two-time Tony winner Norbert Leo Butz (Fosse/Verdon, Bloodline) as the parents of Katherine, Angela’s friend. The Exorcist: Believer is directed by David Gordon Green from a screenplay by Peter Sattler (Camp X-Ray) and David Gordon Green, from a story by Scott Teems (Halloween Kills), Danny McBride (Halloween trilogy) and David Gordon Green, based on characters created by William Peter Blatty.

The Exorcist: Believer lands in theaters on October 13th.  

Are you looking forward to the new movie? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!