'Starry Eyes' Filmmakers Directing 'Exorcism Diaries' For Summit

Summit has been developing a film called Exorcism Diaries for a couple years, originally recruiting Barbara Marshall to write back in 2013, with other writers tackling it in the meantime. The film was originally said to be based on a book that purports to chronicle the true stories behind the film The Exorcist, and while that may be just a good marketing angle from Summit, we'll always take a good exorcism movie.

Now Exorcism Diaries has an even better chance to be good, as the two people who made Starry Eyes, Dennis Widmyer and Kevin Kolsch, have been brought on to rewrite and direct.

THR has the news. Per that report, the Starry Eyes guys are rewriting a script from Mike Flanagan and Jeff Howard (Oculus).

All we have on the plot of the film is a couple lines that keep the "true story of The Exorcist" angle:

Based on true story that inspired the 1970s horror classic The Exorcist, Diaries tells of a young woman, fresh out of rehab and looking to make amends, who discovers her family's horrifying connection to the most famous exorcism of all time may be the cause behind her brother's increasingly violent behavior.

While I'm always suspicious of any story that claims to expose the truth behind a popular bit of horror like The Exorcist, in this case it doesn't really matter.

Kolsch and Widmyer did a great job with Starry Eyes, which took a pretty familiar premise (a young woman compromises herself for stardom) and spun it in a really uncomfortable and effective direction. If they can work similar magic on the "true exorcism story" concept, especially with some of the grim violence that made the Starry Eyes finale so good, we might have some good new horror to look forward to.

(Note: there is also a recent independent effort called The Exorcism Diaries, by Scott McCullough. This is unrelated.)