This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movie being covered here wouldn’t exist.
The Exorcist: Believer is a sequel to The Exorcist, following new families attacked by the demon. Starring Leslie Odom Jr., Ann Dowd, Olivia Marcum, and Lidya Jewett, The Exorcist: Believer tries its best to modernize the original spirit but finds itself falling flat in most areas.
Outside of some great makeup for the kid actors, after they become possessed, nothing in this movie creeped me out with any consistency. It was disappointing to see so many cheap jump scares when the original was so good at blending a tense atmosphere with creepy imagery. It had moments, specifically towards the end, but the flashes were not satisfying enough.
The first part of the movie that follows the parents reacting to their missing daughters was pretty good. It allowed Odom Jr to really flex some emotional weight with his performance. It helped ground the movie as I felt the agony of a father running around not knowing where his girl was. Between the two daughters, I found it a little interesting about the differences in how the two families handled the tragedy. Without spoiling, it made a lot of sense how the story resolved itself.
My biggest issue with The Exorcist: Believer is that it really didn’t need to be in the Exorcist franchise. There have been plenty of exorcism movies that have done well recently and there aren’t really any strong natural ties to the first film.
Ellen Burstyn is barely in the movie and when she is, she’s not doing much. It felt like Blumhouse wanted to bank on the name to sell tickets and follow in their Halloween trilogy’s path. They got David Gordon Green to direct this movie and he did a decent enough job making an exorcism story work in modern times but came up lacking in making a cohesive and engaging story. The ending was pretty bold but the actual exorcism scene leading up to it was pretty lackluster.
Final Thoughts
The Exorcist: Believer is a pretty uninspiring attempt to bring the franchise back to life. Knowing that it has already been approved for two more sequels does not really inspire a lot of confidence. That being said, there have been worse attempts at legacy sequels in recent years and Believer was fine enough to get interest back in the series.
