The Exorcist: Believer Review: A Dull Sequel That Forgets What Made The Original So Special
It's clear that writer/director David Gordon Green and his co-screenwriter Peter Sattler had to fight an uphill battle when making a sequel to William Friedkin's 1973 film "The Exorcist" in 2023. Not only did the filmmakers have to remain cognizant of what narrative ground the four or five previous films in the series had already covered (more on that number below), but they had to somehow rise above the thousands of "Exorcist" knockoffs that have arisen in the last 50 years to provide a fresh take on the material. No easy feat, seeing as how the Tubi library, as of this writing, currently has 49 films with "Exorcist" or "Exorcism" in the title. Apart from "Alien" and "Emmanuelle," "The Exorcist" may be one of the most imitated films in cinema history.
To address the "Exorcist" sequels, Green merely employed the same tactic as he did with his "Halloween" movies: ignore them entirely and reboot the story. "The Exorcist: Believer" is a straight sequel to Friedkin's 1973 original, wisely skirting around the racist underpinnings of John Boorman's 1977 film "Exorcist II: The Heretic." That film posited that young Regan (Linda Blair) was possessed not by Satan of Christian mythology, but by an African demon named Pazuzu. Ignoring it allowed Green, at least on paper, to be more creatively limber with inventing new canonical details.
As for having to make his new "Exorcist" film, the first in nearly 20 years, striking and original, I regret to say that Green seemingly ignored that mandate as well. "The Exorcist: Believer" is as haphazard, uninteresting, and frustratingly shallow as any of the many, many, many "Exorcist" imitators. Green, free to narratively link his film directly to Friedkin's, only churned out another generic knockoff. It's the least interesting "Exorcist" film to date.
The Exorcist: Oh Look, Another One
"Believer" aggravatingly, has seemingly nothing of consequence to say. Friedkin's film is a hefty and still-somehow-timely treatise on the place of faith in an increasingly secular world. It's a quiet, mature film that enthralls adult audiences with quiet introspection, relatable crises of belief in the divine, and multiple harrowing scenes of grounded medical distress. And, of course, the film's climactic exorcism has been burned permanently into the brain of pop culture's Jungian collective unconsciousness.
"Exorcist" imitators tend to lift off only the '73 film's most superficial trappings, usually featuring scenes of young women contorting their bodies and projectile vomiting. Catholic Priests in these films are not holy figures who aid their congregation with spiritual guidance, but badass warriors well-equipped to deal with lurching demons. Remember: if unholy creatures from the bowels of Tartarus infuse a local with the stink of evil, you need a rock 'n' roll Catholic Priest on the case. No other minister, rabbi, or clergyman will do.
Green's only complimentary "Exorcist" commentary in "Believer" is that priests may be aided by other, non-Catholic people in their exorcism duties. Saving souls, he seemingly argues, is not merely the purview of one church, but a pluralistic practice that belongs to any faith community. Sadly, this passing notion is washed away in a sea of perfunctory clichés. The director seemed content to ape deafeningly familiar "Exorcist" iconography to produce a lazy, ineffective demonic thriller that relies on jump-scares more than it does on thought, emotion, or thrills. It's not wild enough to be fun, nor wise enough to enrich. "Believer" is watered-down Communion wine.
Look who's back
The story involves not one, but two 13-year-old girls who become possessed by a demonic force. Leslie Odom, Jr. plays Victor, a professional photographer and widower who is raising his daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) after her mother died in childbirth (we see pregnant mom in flashbacks during a romantic getaway to Port-au-Prince). Angela, becoming curious about her late mother, absconds with her best friend Katherine (Olivia O'Neill) into the Georgia woods after school one day to perform a vague séance of some kind. The two girls go mysteriously missing for several days. When they return, just as mysteriously, they are ... changed. Savvy filmgoers will know instantly that both girls have been possessed by demons and will eventually require an exorcism.
Victor learns all about modern exorcism from a book written by Chris MacNeil, Ellen Burstyn's character from Friedkin's original film. Burstyn, 90, gamely reprises her role to offer several pages of exposition to Odom, making sure that the audience has at least a basic working knowledge of "The Exorcist" and its conceits. Once that's been done, Burstyn steps aside and lets the new supporting cast take over. All of this will lead to a climactic double exorcism, already teased in the film's many previews.
Not that much explanation is needed. The characters in "Believer" seem to have been raised in the same post-"Exorcist" that the audience has, so when 13-year-old girls suddenly display bright yellow eyes, begin speaking in lowered voices, and move objects with their minds, several observers note instantly that a demonic possession is afoot. Thanks to the movies, we all know what possession is supposed to look like. The terrifying uncertainty that William Peter Blatty wrote into his original "Exorcist" novel has been discarded in favor of bland narrative streamlining.
Possessions in the past
In addition to its utter lack of ambition and originality, "The Exorcist: Believer" is also aggravatingly edited. Friedkin's film was a masterwork of savvy pacing and its use of silence to express mounting dread. Green cranks up the pace to a near-whimsical speed, cutting eagerly forward, happy to get to the climax as soon as possible. In so doing, however, there is no sense of danger, no mounting dread. If demonic possession is a known element in the lives of all the characters, then it's merely a solvable problem rather than an aggressive unpacking of the bleak mysteries of faith.
Friedkin's film was followed by the absurd and terrible "Exorcist II: The Heretic" in 1977, which involved psychic links via hypnosis machines. "Exorcist III" hit in 1991, and some fans feel matches the original. In 2004, Paul Shrader famously made a prequel to "The Exorcist" called "Dominion," but the studio panicked and reshot the entire film — with most of the same cast and locations — with director Renny Harlin. Harlin's "The Exorcist: The Beginning" hit theaters first, but it is, by far, the worse one. Schrader's film at least had the decency to be thoughtful.
"Believer" is not the worst "Exorcist" film by any stretch, but it's certainly the least intriguing. It's a rote, choppy thriller that forgets to scare us. A few images are vaguely creepy, but nothing from this film will be recalled with any meaningful clarity once the year is out. Green has such a loose grasp on the material that he seems to panic and fall back on jump scares and roaring demon children. After 50 years, it might be time to put cinematic exorcisms out to pasture and let Tubi have them for itself.
/Film rating: 4.5 out of 10