Film Review - The Exorcist: Believer
Images courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Making a new entry in a long-buried franchise can prove to be a difficult endeavour, as is attempting a direct sequel to the original - let alone when you're trying to follow up the 1973 classic The Exorcist. Directed by David Gordon Green, the latest legacy sequel The Exorcist: Believer attempts to reinvigorate the series for a new generation. But is there room, or a want, for another possession franchise, when even heavy hitters like The Conjuring seem to be running out of steam?
Kicking off in the Haiti earthquake of 2010, Believer immediately attempts to ground its emotional stakes in real-world tragedy. From there, we follow the widowed Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) and his daughter, Angela (Lidya Jewett), still coping with the loss of their wife and mother - that is until Angela and her friend Katherine (Olivia Marcum) disappear in the woods, only to mysteriously return three days later with no memory of what happened to them. Soon, Victor must put his scepticism aside and reach out for the help of Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), who dealt with the possession of her daughter 50 years ago.
The film’s strongest asset is its cast, especially the child actors. Jewett and Marcum bring an innocence and vulnerability that enhances their characters' horrific transformations, and terrifies when the moment calls for it. Likewise, Leslie Odom Jr. gives a compelling performance as a father facing demons of his own. However, the choice to bring Burstyn back to the franchise after she refused to appear in any film since the first comes across as forced and, to be honest, pointless. She doesn't show up for very long, gets sidelined almost immediately, and then gets a completely unearned payoff to her character arc shoehorned in as the film nears its conclusion - a mere symptom of the formula Green helped popularise with 2018's Halloween.
Believer has a helping of impressive visuals and sound design, creating an engaging, grounded foundation through its first two acts. It's in the setup that the film's most promising aspects are front and centre, but even this is hampered by frankly bafflingly editing decisions. The amateur approach to the editing undercuts the film's few strengths, turning its shocks into lame jump scares, kneecapping the actors by not giving the performances room to breathe, and transforming scenes into a hastily assembled collection of shots. To its credit, it at least attempts to explore the idea of multiple faiths dealing with the same possession, but this exploration is surface level at best, and it ends up leaning towards the usual Christian method.
Like the Halloween trilogy before it, this first entry in a supposed new Exorcist trilogy does well to modernise the series, but suffers further from poor story and script work, feeling more like a lame book sequel tie-in to the original film than something that justifies being a feature in its own right. Believer fails to keep up with how the genre has progressed since Friedkin's classic, offering little in the way of terror or atmosphere. The possession/exorcism subgenre isn't even particularly known for its innovative qualities either - outside of outliers like the Evil Dead franchise, or indie hits like Hereditary and Talk to Me - so to have it fall short of such a low bar stings even more if you have its tenuous links to its predecessor in mind. This all culminates in a final act that's bereft of tension, scares, or even an actual exorcist.
Despite some initial promise, The Exorcist: Believer is a half-hearted attempt at best, and complacent with mediocrity at worst. Following up an all-time horror classic half a century later is no doubt a tough gig to pull off, but it seems the approach was to preemptively admit defeat rather than commit to forging a new path forward. Reportedly the studio inked a $400 million distribution deal for this new trilogy, but considering the way Believer wraps itself up a little too neatly, it seems as though the series already has one foot in the dirt.
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The Exorcist: Believer is screening in cinemas from Thursday 5th October. For tickets and more info, click here.