The Exorcist: Believer Review: Possession Story With a Conflicted Soul

The Exorcist: Believer sees director David Gordon Green follow his revitalization of the Halloween franchise with a new vision of the dark world of demonic possession introduced in Wiliam Friedkin’s Oscar-winning 1973 film The Exorcist. Like with Halloween (2018), Green attempts to capture the core essence of what made The Exorcist so iconic, acclaimed, and frightening, while updating the context and characters for the modern world – with some legacy character(s) included to tie the new installment to the classic original. 

Unfortunately, what Green and co. did with Halloween is looking more and more like an exception that proves the rule that this legacy sequel/reboot (“requel”) formula isn’t a great one. Exorcist: Believer captures the “legacy” of the original in name only – even after dragging the original film star Ellen Burstyn back into the franchise. 

The story of The Exorcist: Believer follows Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) a single dad marked by deep tragedy, trying to make life happy for his teen daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett). That happy daddy-daughter life is shattered when Angela and her school friend Katherine (Olivia O’Neill) go missing, having last been seen heading into the woods by their school. Angela and Katherine are found three days later, but both girls are significantly changed and dark supernatural occurrences start happening around them. Katherine’s highly religious parents and other townspeople soon recognize what the skeptic Victor will not: that the Devil has a hold of the girls, pushing the parents into a twisted spiritual battle to save one or both of them. 

David Gordon Green and his team should be commended for making The Exorcist: Believer a visual and stylistic achievement, which does right by the franchise. The first two acts of the film are well-constructed and shot, with impeccable production design, costuming, and makeup. Indeed, the best stretch of the film is the second act build-up where the girls’ possessions begin to manifest; when Green is focused on simply making a classic jump-scare demonic horror film, he does so pretty masterfully. Unfortunately, the story of Exorcist: Believer tries to bite off a much bigger piece than that, and ends up choking on it as a result. 

Exorcist: Believer turns out to be an unbalanced mess of a story, that doesn’t ever seem to know where to put its focus. The dual possession storyline was a questionable choice: the film clearly makes Victor and Angela its main focus, leaving Katherine and her family as secondary characters. And yet, the entire climax of the movie is based on having to weigh the lives of both girls, while early on there is a clear set of subplots established, based on the optics of who the girls are, and the differences between their families when it comes to religious faith. There are a number of other characters introduced (Ann Dowd’s Nurse Ann, Danny McCarthy’s Stuart, Raphael Sbarge’s Paster Revans) that ultimately feel unnecessary, making Exorcist: Believer feel overstuffed and spread thin as Green’s sequel film, Halloween Kills. The final act tries to pull all of these characters, religious subplots, and spiritual themes together for a “final battle” that’s supposed by unifying and rousing – but truly it doesn’t earn the grand finish it hoped for, and the resolution feels confusing and underwhelming as a result. While the cast is stacked with strong dramatic actors and even two talented young leads in Jewett and Marcum, the story never capitalizes on the nuances of their performances or brings their individual character arcs into a satisfying convergence. 

That all said, the most egregious sin The Exorcist: Believer commits is tying itself to the original film by way of Ellen Burstyn’s Chris MacNeil. Unlike Jamie Lee Curtis being given a complex and rich character performance as an older, trauma-hardened Laurie Strode in the new Halloween Trilogy, Burstyn’s return as MacNeil is a gimmicky cameo in the fullest sense – a superficial connection that serves as the sole justification for why this film even gets to carry the name of “The Exorcist.” It’s a shame to say that the continuing story of the MacNeil family was told much better in the Fox Exorcist TV series from a few years ago – Exorcist: Believer just adds a dour epilogue that no one needed or asked for. 

The Exorcist: Believer feels like it will go down as an odd and misguided attempt at a direct sequel – one that fails to provide any new soul to the franchise. 

Rating: 2 out of 5

The Exorcist: Believer is in theaters on October 6th.