The Exorcist: Believer review.
The Exorcist: Believer is more afraid of The Exorcist than you will ever be of it.
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The Exorcist: Believer
Directed by David Gordon Green
Screenplay by Peter Sattler and David Gordon Green
Starring Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd, Jennifer Nettles, Norbert Leo Butz, Lidya Jewett, Olivia Marcum and Ellen Burstyn
The Exorcist: Believer Review
When early reviews for David Gordon Green’s legacy sequel to The Exorcist began to pop up…I was prepared to write an angry review. We saw this coming, right? The buzz seemed to indicate that Believer was going to be a creative flop long before its review embargo was lifted. I can recall reading months ago that test screenings for the movie were met with disdain…mostly because the movie wasn’t scary at all. So, it’s no surprise that I sit here tonight writing a negative review of The Exorcist: Believer having seen the movie for myself. What is surprising, however, is how little anger towards it…or passion for writing it…that I have. The Exorcist: Believer is simply too boring to feel strong emotions toward.
How did this happen? How could anyone create something as safe and benign as The Exorcist: Believer? I’d like to tell you that the answer lies in Green’s recent Halloween trilogy. Itself a legacy sequel to one of the greatest horror entries in history. It’d like to tell you that…but I can’t. Wherever you think Green’s Halloween movies went off the rails…The Exorcist: Believer has an entirely different problem. For me…Green’s insistence on focusing on Haddonfield and the effects of the Boogeyman’s killing sprees for the latter two movies is where he lost the plot. But, at least, those movies had something to say. Believer does not.
It would be easy to joke that after 50 years the best idea anyone could come up with for a sequel to the first horror movie ever nominated for Best Picture was “two girls are possessed”. It would also be incredibly accurate. Outside of two children being at risk here…there’s nothing memorable about it. Even that aspect isn’t very memorable. In fact, the only thing you’re likely to take away from seeing The Exorcist: Believer is how afraid it is to be The Exorcist.
If you’ve seen that 1973 classic…you remember it. You remember an innocent girl being put through hell at hospital visit after hospital visit before the demon even gains full control. You remember her mother’s slow and realistic growing panic over her daughter’s condition. A priest who has lost his faith. A priest who has spent his life fighting this demon. You remember the shocking moments that went harder than anything we’ve seen in the 50 years since. The sacrifice that ends it. You remember all of it because all of it mattered.
The Exorcist: Believer has none of these things. This isn’t a case of Green wanting to do something different. Corey Cunningham was the talk of the horror world for all the wrong reasons last spooky season. While Halloween Ends was not the series capper for Laurie Strode that we wanted it to be…I maintain that it’s a well-made film that will do well in future reappraisal. The Exorcist: Believer won’t. Because it doesn’t do anything new. It just hides from the shock and awe that the original is still able to provide.
This is one of the least scary horror movies you’re ever going to find. It’s as dangerous as a Scooby Doo episode. As shocking as a yawn in church. Even the one moment genuinely designed to shock only leads to a shake of the head over how it treats one of the few characters we care about (and not because of their role in this movie).
Halloween (2018) was an interesting take on what Laurie Strode would be doing 40 years after the night he came home. What would her life be like…what would she do if he came back. It’s not perfect…but it is a fully realized story. The Exorcist: Believer does not take such care with the legacy of The Exorcist. Any somewhat interesting idea the story has ends up a pointless one. Green is still, somehow, obsessed with community vs. evil. Apparently, the only person who hasn’t had enough of that yet. Here, we have even less reason to care about it. Which is really saying something after Halloween Kills.
This time it’s hard to fully decipher what he’s even saying about that. Messaging is muddled throughout the movie…and you have plenty of time to wonder what that messaging is given the total lack of suspense, tension, or scares in the picture. What we have is some good actors given very little to do. The first half of the movie works better than the second. The climactic exorcism is so tepid it’s difficult to believe. It should be impossible to make possession and exorcism this boring. Laughable even.
This isn’t the first bad movie to take The Exorcist name. It won’t be the last. It is, however, the most boring…and is likely to stay that way. A confused, confounding effort. Why take on the material if you have nothing to say about it? Why make a legacy sequel if you are afraid to embrace the legacy? You’ll spend more time thinking about those questions while watching Believer than you will being engaged in the movie. 50 years ago, a classic horror movie perfected a subgenre. It plays as powerfully today as it did in 1973. Today…the story of its legacy sequel is so safe and boring that it can only be met with a shrug. It doesn’t do enough to be bad. It’s simply…there.
Scare Value
The biggest misstep made in The Exorcist: Believer is in taking the name of an all-time classic film. This could be any exorcism movie we’ve seen fail for the last 50 years…albeit somehow more boring than most. By attaching itself to The Exorcist‘s legacy…it does a double disservice. 1973 saw a bold, shocking, terrifying take on possession that has never been matched. 2023 offers up a by the numbers, plodding, toothless version of the same thing. The more filmmakers attempt to tackle an exorcism story…the more powerful the original Exorcist becomes.
2/5
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