Movie Review: ‘The Exorcist: Believer’ starring, Leslie Odom Jr., Olivia O’Neil

Fifty years ago, The Exorcist, written by William Peter Blatty and directed by William Friedkin scared audiences to death. The film changed the game for horror. To this day, The Exorcist is one of the most terrifying films I’ve ever seen. It holds up against any of the modern day crap that we get. 

Is the new film, The Exorcist: Believer, Director David Gordon Green and Blumhouse, fresh off the recent Halloween trilogy, get together to create a new chapter of the horror classic. Many had high hopes that this time around, things would be different and the film would be a winner, unlike many of the sequels that have followed. With the exception of The Exorcist 3, which in my opinion is a fine piece of horror movie goodness, the sequels have been awful, and that’s putting it nicely.

Well, I hate to say I told you so, but….

Green had so much promise as a horror director after the first Halloween film that he did, but it’s all been downhill from there. With the final installment of the Halloween franchise, Halloween Ends, being one of the biggest pieces of trash I’ve seen in a long time. Well, The Exorcist: Believer may not be complete trash, but it’s certainly not worth paying your hard earned money to see in theaters.

The bad thing about all this is, we are getting two more of these films. If Green’s track record means anything, it’s only going to get progressively worse from here folks.

The new film attempts to make a statement on religion in the modern world and the problem is, the script is so poorly written, it’s just not effective. 

Here’s the plot and it’s thinner than some slices of Lion’s Choice roast beef. 

Victor Fielding, played by Leslie Odom Jr. is raising his daughter Angela, played by Lidya Jewett, all by himself, following the death of his wife 13 years earlier. The father and daughter now reside in Georgia. Angela, along with her friend Katherine, played by Olivia O’Neill venture into the woods, after Angela becomes curious about her late mother. The pair fail to return home for dinner, finally reappearing three days later. After returning, the girls have no recollection of what happened, setting off a series of events that make Victor reminisce about the past and question the concepts of faith in an attempt to save his daughter. 

The first part of the film isn’t bad, in fact, I enjoyed it. There are lots of jump scares and very tense and eerie moments that make the viewer feel uneasy, but it goes downhill after that. 

Green does his best imitations of the demonic imagery and messed up faces that freaked out viewers in the original, unfortunately, it’s just not working that well here. The film went wrong when Green focused on modern religion and faith. It’s a bold approach, but just not done well enough to make the viewer give a crap. He opted for this approach rather focusing on the bond between a father and his daughter, especially after losing the mother. To me, this is a much more relatable and heartfelt approach that viewers could not only relate to, but feel drawn into during the film. 

Deciding to focus more on the drama that goes with conflicting religious and faith beliefs ultimately loses the audience. The original Exorcist was so well-written, directed and acted that the film could not only toss in conflicts of faith, but terrifying scares as well. The new film lacks just about all of that. 

I had hoped that the return of Ellen Burstyn and Chris MacNeil would help the new film excel, however she is only nostalgia bait. It’s a shame her return is just used as a ploy to draw in fans of the original, only left to be disappointed.

In the end, what made The Exorcist so frightening is the fact that the characters were authentic, dealing with relatable issues that delved into the dark depths of evil. Believer rushes through giving the characters any depth, leaving the viewer with a hollow feeling about the film. In other words, I just didn’t care about the characters. 

The film is beautifully shot, but what started with so much promise, ultimately burns out well before the end. While it wasn’t awful, I certainly can’t recommend it. In fact, in the end, all I could think was, ‘We are getting two more of these?’ That’s even more disappointing than The Exorcist: Believer. 

The Exorcist: Believer gets a D+.